{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70458/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70458","id":"gutenberg_70458","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70458","summary":null,"tags":["Animism","Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Civilization -- History","Ethnology","Language and languages","Mythology","Prehistoric peoples","Religion","Social evolution"],"text":"PRIMITIVE CULTURE\n\n\n\n\n                    FIRST EDITION     _April, 1871._\n                    SECOND EDITION    _November, 1873._\n                    THIRD EDITION     _December, 1891._\n                    FOURTH EDITION    _October, 1903._\n                    FIFTH EDITION     _January, 1913._\n                    SIXTH EDITION     _June, 1920._\n\n\n\n\n                           PRIMITIVE CULTURE\n\n                    RESEARCHES INTO THE DEVELOPMENT\n                   OF MYTHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION\n                       LANGUAGE, ART, AND CUSTOM\n\n\n               BY EDWARD B. TYLOR, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.\n\n         PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\n     AUTHOR OF \u201cRESEARCHES INTO THE EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND,\u201d ETC.\n\n\n   \u201cCe n\u2019est pas dans les possibilit\u00e9s, c\u2019est dans l\u2019homme m\u00eame qu\u2019il\n  faut \u00e9tudier l\u2019homme: il ne s\u2019agit pas d\u2019imaginer ce qu\u2019il auroit p\u00fb\n       ou d\u00fb faire, mais de regarder ce qu\u2019il fait.\u201d\u2014DE BROSSES.\n\n\n                             IN TWO VOLUMES\n\n                                 VOL. I\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n\n                   JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.\n\n                                  1920\n\n\n\n\nPRINTED IN U.S.A.\n\n[_Rights of Translation and Reproduction reserved_]\n\n\n\n\n                     PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.\n\n\nThe present volumes, uniform with the previous volume of \u2018Researches\ninto the Early History of Mankind\u2019 (1st Ed. 1865; 2nd Ed. 1870), carry\non the investigation of Culture into other branches of thought and\nbelief, art and custom. During the past six years I have taken occasion\nto bring tentatively before the public some of the principal points of\nnew evidence and argument here advanced. The doctrine of survival in\nculture, the bearing of directly-expressive language and the invention\nof numerals on the problem of early civilization, the place of myth in\nthe primitive history of the human mind, the development of the\nanimistic philosophy of religion, and the origin of rites and\nceremonies, have been discussed in various papers and lectures,[1]\nbefore being treated at large and with a fuller array of facts in this\nwork.\n\nThe authorities for the facts stated in the text are fully specified in\nthe foot-notes, which must also serve as my general acknowledgment of\nobligations to writers on ethnography and kindred sciences, as well as\nto historians, travellers, and missionaries. I will only mention apart\ntwo treatises of which I have made especial use: the \u2018Mensch in der\nGeschichte,\u2019 by Professor Bastian, of Berlin, and the \u2018Anthropologie der\nNaturv\u00f6lker,\u2019 by the late Professor Waitz, of Marburg.\n\nIn discussing problems so complex as those of the development of\ncivilization, it is not enough to put forward theories accompanied by a\nfew illustrative examples. The statement of the facts must form the\nstaple of the argument, and the limit of needful detail is only reached\nwhen each group so displays its general law, that fresh cases come to\nrange themselves in their proper niches as new instances of an already\nestablished rule. Should it seem to any readers that my attempt to reach\nthis limit sometimes leads to the heaping up of too cumbrous detail, I\nwould point out that the theoretical novelty as well as the practical\nimportance of many of the issues raised, make it most unadvisable to\nstint them of their full evidence. In the course of ten years chiefly\nspent in these researches, it has been my constant task to select the\nmost instructive ethnological facts from the vast mass on record, and by\nlopping away unnecessary matter to reduce the data on each problem to\nwhat is indispensable for reasonable proof.\n\nE. B. T.\n\n_March, 1871._\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  Fortnightly Review: \u2018Origin of Language,\u2019 April 15, 1866; \u2018Religion of\n  Savages,\u2019 August 15, 1866. Lectures at Royal Institution: \u2018Traces of\n  the Early Mental Condition of Man,\u2019 March 15, 1867; \u2018Survival of\n  Savage Thought in Modern Civilization,\u2019 April 23, 1869. Lecture at\n  University College, London: \u2018Spiritualistic Philosophy of the Lower\n  Races of Mankind,\u2019 May 8, 1869. Paper read at British Association,\n  Nottingham, 1866: \u2018Phenomena of Civilization Traceable to a Rudimental\n  Origin among Savage Tribes.\u2019 Paper read at Ethnological Society of\n  London, April 26, 1870: \u2018Philosophy of Religion among the Lower Races\n  of Mankind,\u2019 &c., &c.\n\n\n\n\n                     PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.\n\n\nSince the publication of this work in 1871, translations have appeared\nin German and Russian. In the present edition the form of page has been\nslightly altered, for convenience of re-issue at once in England and\nAmerica. The matter, however, remains substantially the same. A few\npassages have been amplified or altered for greater clearness, and on\nsome points additional or improved evidence has been put in. Among the\nanthropologists whose published reviews or private communications have\nenabled me to correct or strengthen various points, I will only mention\nby name Professor Felix Liebrecht, of Li\u00e9ge, Mr. Clements R. Markham,\nProfessor Calderwood, Mr. Ralston, and Mr. Sebastian Evans.\n\nIt may have struck some readers as an omission, that in a work on\ncivilization insisting so strenuously on a theory of development or\nevolution, mention should scarcely have been made of Mr. Darwin and Mr.\nHerbert Spencer, whose influence on the whole course of modern thought\non such subjects should not be left without formal recognition. This\nabsence of particular reference is accounted for by the present work,\narranged on its own lines, coming scarcely into contact of detail with\nthe previous works of these eminent philosophers.\n\nAn objection made by several critics as to the accumulation of evidence\nin these volumes leads me to remark, with sincere gratification, that\nthis objection has in fact been balanced by solid advantage. The plan of\ncollecting wide and minute evidence, so that readers may have actually\nbefore them the means of judging the theory put forward, has been\njustified by the reception of the book, even in circles to whose views\nmany of its arguments are strongly adverse, and that in matters of the\nfirst importance. Writers of most various philosophical and theological\nschools now admit that the ethnological facts are real, and vital, and\nhave to be accounted for. It is not too much to say that a perceptible\nmovement of public opinion has here justified the belief that the\nEnglish mind, not readily swayed by rhetoric, moves freely under the\npressure of facts.\n\nE. B. T.\n\n_September, 1873._\n\n\n\n\n                     PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.\n\n\nIn this edition, while I have not found it needful to alter the general\nargument, the new information which has become available during the last\ntwenty years has made it necessary to insert further details of\nevidence, and to correct some few statements. For convenience of\nreference, the paging of the last edition is kept to.\n\nE. B. T.\n\n_September, 1891._\n\n\n\n\n                     PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.\n\n\nFor ordinary purposes the present edition may be taken as substantially\nunchanged. In only a few passages noticeable alterations have been made,\n(see vol. i. p. 167, vocal tone; vol. ii. pp. 234-7, totemism).\n\nE. B. T.\n\n_October, 1903._\n\n\n\n\n                     CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE SCIENCE OF CULTURE.\n\nCulture or Civilization\u2014Its phenomena related according to definite\nLaws\u2014Method of classification and discussion of the evidence\u2014Connexion\nof successive stages of culture by Permanence, Modification, and\nSurvival\u2014Principal topics examined in the present work 1\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE.\n\nState of culture, industrial, intellectual, political,\nmoral\u2014Development of culture in great measure corresponds with\ntransition from savage through barbaric to civilized\nlife\u2014Progression-theory\u2014Degeneration-theory\u2014Development-theory\nincludes both, the one as primary, the other as secondary\u2014Historical\nand traditional evidence not available as to low stages of\nculture\u2014Historical evidence as to principles of\nDegeneration\u2014Ethnological evidence as to rise and fall in culture,\nfrom comparison of different levels of culture in branches of the same\nrace\u2014Extent of historically recorded antiquity of\ncivilization\u2014Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology extends the antiquity of man in\nlow stages of civilization\u2014Traces of Stone Age, corroborated by\nmegalithic structures, lake-dwellings, shell-heaps, burial-places,\n&c., prove original low culture throughout the world\u2014Stages of\nProgressive Development in industrial arts 26\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nSURVIVAL IN CULTURE.\n\nSurvival and Superstition\u2014Children\u2019s games\u2014Games of chance\u2014Traditional\nsayings\u2014Nursery poems\u2014Proverbs\u2014Riddles\u2014Significance and survival in\nCustoms: sneezing-formula, rite of foundation-sacrifice, prejudice\nagainst saving a drowning man 70\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nOccult Sciences\u2014Magical powers attributed by higher to lower\nraces\u2014Magical processes based on Association of Ideas\u2014Omens\u2014Augury,\n&c.\u2014Oneiromancy\u2014Haruspication, Scapulimancy, Chiromancy,\n&c.\u2014Cartomancy, &c.\u2014Rhabdomancy, Dactyliomancy, Coscinomancy,\n&c.\u2014Astrology\u2014Intellectual conditions accounting for the persistence\nof Magic\u2014Survival passes into Revival\u2014Witchcraft, originating in\nsavage culture, continues in barbaric civilization; its decline in\nearly medi\u00e6val Europe followed by revival; its practices and\ncounter-practices belong to earlier culture\u2014Spiritualism has its\nsource in early stages of culture, in close connexion with\nwitchcraft\u2014Spirit-rapping and Spirit-writing\u2014Rising in the\nair\u2014Performances of tied mediums\u2014Practical bearing of the study of\nSurvival 112\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nEMOTIONAL AND IMITATIVE LANGUAGE.\n\nElement of directly expressive Sound in Language\u2014Test by independent\ncorrespondence in distinct languages\u2014Constituent processes\nof Language\u2014Gesture\u2014Expression of feature, &c.\u2014Emotional\nTone\u2014Articulate sounds, vowels determined by musical quality\nand pitch, consonants\u2014Emphasis and Accent\u2014Phrase-melody,\nRecitative\u2014Sound-words\u2014Interjections\u2014Calls to Animals\u2014Emotional\nCries\u2014Sense-words formed from Interjections\u2014Affirmative and Negative\nparticles, &c. 160\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nEMOTIONAL AND IMITATIVE LANGUAGE (_continued_).\n\nImitative Words\u2014Human actions named from sound\u2014Animals\u2019 names from\ncries, &c.\u2014Musical Instruments\u2014Sounds reproduced\u2014Words modified to adapt\nsound to sense\u2014Reduplication\u2014Graduation of vowels to express distance\nand difference\u2014Children\u2019s Language\u2014Sound-words as related to\nSense-words\u2014Language an original product of the lower Culture 200\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE ART OF COUNTING.\n\nIdeas of Number derived from experience\u2014State of Arithmetic among\nuncivilized races\u2014Small extent of Numeral-words among low\ntribes\u2014Counting by fingers and toes\u2014Hand-numerals show derivation of\nVerbal reckoning from Gesture-counting\u2014Etymology of Numerals\u2014Quinary,\nDecimal, and Vigesimal notations of the world derived from counting on\nfingers and toes\u2014Adoption of foreign Numeral-words\u2014Evidence of\ndevelopment of Arithmetic from a low original level of Culture 240\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nMYTHOLOGY.\n\nMythic fancy based, like other thought, on Experience\u2014Mythology\naffords evidence for studying laws of Imagination\u2014Change in public\nopinion as to credibility of Myths\u2014Myths rationalized into Allegory\nand History\u2014Ethnological import and treatment of Myth\u2014Myth to be\nstudied in actual existence and growth among modern savages and\nbarbarians\u2014Original sources of Myth\u2014Early doctrines of general\nanimation of Nature\u2014Personification of Sun, Moon, and Stars;\nWater-spout, Sand-pillar, Rainbow, Waterfall, Pestilence\u2014Analogy\nworked into Myth and Metaphor\u2014Myths of Rain, Thunder, &c.\u2014Effect of\nLanguage in formation of Myth\u2014Material Personification primary, Verbal\nPersonification secondary\u2014Grammatical Gender, male and female, animate\nand inanimate, in relation to Myth\u2014Proper names of objects in relation\nto Myth\u2014Mental State proper to promote mythic imagination\u2014Doctrine of\nWerewolves\u2014Phantasy and Fancy 273\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nMYTHOLOGY (_continued_).\n\nNature-myths, their origin, canon of interpretation, preservation of\noriginal sense and significant names\u2014Nature-myths of upper savage\nraces compared with related forms among barbaric and civilized\nnations\u2014Heaven and Earth as Universal Parents\u2014Sun and Moon: Eclipse\nand Sunset, as Hero or Maiden swallowed by Monster; Rising of Sun from\nSea and Descent to Under-World; Jaws of Night and Death, Symplegades;\nEye of Heaven, Eye of Odin and the Grai\u00e6\u2014Sun and Moon as mythic\ncivilizers\u2014Moon, her inconstancy, periodical death and revival\u2014Stars,\ntheir generation\u2014Constellations, their place in Mythology and\nAstronomy\u2014Wind and Tempest\u2014Thunder\u2014Earthquake 316\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nMYTHOLOGY (_continued_).\n\nPhilosophical Myths: inferences become pseudo-history\u2014Geological\nMyths\u2014Effect of doctrine of Miracles on Mythology\u2014Magnetic\nMountain\u2014Myths of relation of Apes to Men by development or\ndegeneration\u2014Ethnological import of myths of Ape-men, Men with tails,\nMen of the woods\u2014Myths of Error, Perversion, and Exaggeration: stories\nof Giants, Dwarfs, and Monstrous Tribes of men\u2014Fanciful explanatory\nMyths\u2014Myths attached to legendary or historical Personages\u2014Etymological\nMyths on names of places and persons\u2014Eponymic Myths on names of tribes,\nnations, countries, &c.; their ethnological import\u2014Pragmatic Myths by\nrealization of metaphors and ideas\u2014Allegory\u2014Beast-Fable\u2014Conclusion 368\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nANIMISM.\n\nReligious ideas generally appear among low races of Mankind\u2014Negative\nstatements on this subject frequently misleading and mistaken: many\ncases uncertain\u2014Minimum definition of Religion\u2014Doctrine of Spiritual\nBeings, here termed Animism\u2014Animism treated as belonging to Natural\nReligion\u2014Animism divided into two sections, the philosophy of Souls, and\nof other Spirits\u2014Doctrine of Souls, its prevalence and definition among\nthe lower races\u2014Definition of Apparitional Soul or Ghost-Soul\u2014It is a\ntheoretical conception of primitive Philosophy, designed to account for\nphenomena now classed under Biology, especially Life and Death, Health\nand Disease, Sleep and Dreams, Trance and Visions\u2014Relation of Soul in\nname and nature to Shadow, Blood, Breath\u2014Division or Plurality of\nSouls\u2014Soul cause of Life; its restoration to body when supposed\nabsent\u2014Exit of Soul in Trances\u2014Dreams and Visions: theory of exit of\ndreamer\u2019s or seer\u2019s own soul; theory of visits received by them from\nother souls\u2014Ghost-Soul seen in Apparitions\u2014Wraiths and Doubles\u2014Soul has\nform of Body; suffers mutilation with it\u2014Voice of Ghost\u2014Soul treated and\ndefined as of Material Substance; this appears to be the original\ndoctrine\u2014Transmission of Souls to service in future life by Funeral\nSacrifice of wives, attendants, &c.\u2014Souls of Animals\u2014Their transmission\nby Funeral Sacrifice\u2014Souls of Plants\u2014Souls of Objects\u2014Their transmission\nby Funeral Sacrifice\u2014Relation of Doctrine of Object-Souls to Epicurean\ntheory of Ideas\u2014Historical development of Doctrine of Souls, from the\nEthereal Soul of primitive Biology to the Immaterial Soul of modern\nTheology 417\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n                        THE SCIENCE OF CULTURE.\n\n    Culture or Civilization\u2014Its phenomena related according to definite\n    Laws\u2014Method of classification and discussion of the\n    evidence\u2014Connexion of successive stages of culture by Permanence,\n    Modification, and Survival\u2014Principal topics examined in the present\n    work.\n\n\nCulture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that\ncomplex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,\ncustom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a\nmember of society. The condition of culture among the various societies\nof mankind, in so far as it is capable of being investigated on general\nprinciples, is a subject apt for the study of laws of human thought and\naction. On the one hand, the uniformity which so largely pervades\ncivilization may be ascribed, in great measure, to the uniform action of\nuniform causes: while on the other hand its various grades may be\nregarded as stages of development or evolution, each the outcome of\nprevious history, and about to do its proper part in shaping the history\nof the future. To the investigation of these two great principles in\nseveral departments of ethnography, with especial consideration of the\ncivilization of the lower tribes as related to the civilization of the\nhigher nations, the present volumes are devoted.\n\nOur modern investigators in the sciences of inorganic nature are\nforemost to recognize, both within and without their special fields of\nwork, the unity of nature, the fixity of its laws, the definite sequence\nof cause and effect through which every fact depends on what has gone\nbefore it, and acts upon what is to come after it. They grasp firmly the\nPythagorean doctrine of pervading order in the universal Kosmos. They\naffirm, with Aristotle, that nature is not full of incoherent episodes,\nlike a bad tragedy. They agree with Leibnitz in what he calls \u2018my axiom,\nthat nature never acts by leaps (la nature n\u2019agit jamais par saut),\u2019 as\nwell as in his \u2018great principle, commonly little employed, that nothing\nhappens without sufficient reason.\u2019 Nor again, in studying the structure\nand habits of plants and animals, or in investigating the lower\nfunctions even of man, are these leading ideas unacknowledged. But when\nwe come to talk of the higher processes of human feeling and action, of\nthought and language, knowledge and art, a change appears in the\nprevalent tone of opinion. The world at large is scarcely prepared to\naccept the general study of human life as a branch of natural science,\nand to carry out, in a large sense, the poet\u2019s injunction, to \u2018Account\nfor moral as for natural things.\u2019 To many educated minds there seems\nsomething presumptuous and repulsive in the view that the history of\nmankind is part and parcel of the history of nature, that our thoughts,\nwills, and actions accord with laws as definite as those which govern\nthe motion of waves, the combination of acids and bases, and the growth\nof plants and animals.\n\nThe main reasons of this state of the popular judgment are not far to\nseek. There are many who would willingly accept a science of history if\nplaced before them with substantial definiteness of principle and\nevidence, but who not unreasonably reject the systems offered to them,\nas falling too far short of a scientific standard. Through resistance\nsuch as this, real knowledge always sooner or later makes its way, while\nthe habit of opposition to novelty does such excellent service against\nthe invasions of speculative dogmatism, that we may sometimes even wish\nit were stronger than it is. But other obstacles to the investigation of\nlaws of human nature arise from considerations of metaphysics and\ntheology. The popular notion of free human will involves not only\nfreedom to act in accordance with motive, but also a power of breaking\nloose from continuity and acting without cause,\u2014a combination which may\nbe roughly illustrated by the simile of a balance sometimes acting in\nthe usual way, but also possessed of the faculty of turning by itself\nwithout or against its weights. This view of an anomalous action of the\nwill, which it need hardly be said is incompatible with scientific\nargument, subsists as an opinion patent or latent in men\u2019s minds, and\nstrongly affecting their theoretic views of history, though it is not,\nas a rule, brought prominently forward in systematic reasoning. Indeed\nthe definition of human will, as strictly according with motive, is the\nonly possible scientific basis in such enquiries. Happily, it is not\nneedful to add here yet another to the list of dissertations on\nsupernatural intervention and natural causation, on liberty,\npredestination, and accountability. We may hasten to escape from the\nregions of transcendental philosophy and theology, to start on a more\nhopeful journey over more practicable ground. None will deny that, as\neach man knows by the evidence of his own consciousness, definite and\nnatural cause does, to a great extent, determine human action. Then,\nkeeping aside from considerations of extra-natural interference and\ncauseless spontaneity, let us take this admitted existence of natural\ncause and effect as our standing-ground, and travel on it so far as it\nwill bear us. It is on this same basis that physical science pursues,\nwith ever-increasing success, its quest of laws of nature. Nor need this\nrestriction hamper the scientific study of human life, in which the real\ndifficulties are the practical ones of enormous complexity of evidence,\nand imperfection of methods of observation.\n\nNow it appears that this view of human will and conduct as subject to\ndefinite law, is indeed recognised and acted upon by the very people who\noppose it when stated in the abstract as a general principle, and who\nthen complain that it annihilates man\u2019s free will, destroys his sense of\npersonal responsibility, and degrades him to a soulless machine. He who\nwill say these things will nevertheless pass much of his own life in\nstudying the motives which lead to human action, seeking to attain his\nwishes through them, framing in his mind theories of personal character,\nreckoning what are likely to be the effects of new combinations, and\ngiving to his reasoning the crowning character of true scientific\nenquiry, by taking it for granted that in so far as his calculation\nturns out wrong, either his evidence must have been false or incomplete,\nor his judgment upon it unsound. Such a one will sum up the experience\nof years spent in complex relations with society, by declaring his\npersuasion that there is a reason for everything in life, and that where\nevents look unaccountable, the rule is to wait and watch in hope that\nthe key to the problem may some day be found. This man\u2019s observation may\nhave been as narrow as his inferences are crude and prejudiced, but\nnevertheless he has been an inductive philosopher \u2018more than forty years\nwithout knowing it.\u2019 He has practically acknowledged definite laws of\nhuman thought and action, and has simply thrown out of account in his\nown studies of life the whole fabric of motiveless will and uncaused\nspontaneity. It is assumed here that they should be just so thrown out\nof account in wider studies, and that the true philosophy of history\nlies in extending and improving the methods of the plain people who form\ntheir judgments upon facts, and check them upon new facts. Whether the\ndoctrine be wholly or but partly true, it accepts the very condition\nunder which we search for new knowledge in the lessons of experience,\nand in a word the whole course of our rational life is based upon it.\n\n\u2018One event is always the son of another, and we must never forget the\nparentage,\u2019 was a remark made by a Bechuana chief to Casalis the African\nmissionary. Thus at all times historians, so far as they have aimed at\nbeing more than mere chroniclers, have done their best to show not\nmerely succession, but connexion, among the events upon their record.\nMoreover, they have striven to elicit general principles of human\naction, and by these to explain particular events, stating expressly or\ntaking tacitly for granted the existence of a philosophy of history.\nShould any one deny the possibility of thus establishing historical\nlaws, the answer is ready with which Boswell in such a case turned on\nJohnson: \u2018Then, sir, you would reduce all history to no better than an\nalmanack.\u2019 That nevertheless the labours of so many eminent thinkers\nshould have as yet brought history only to the threshold of science,\nneed cause no wonder to those who consider the bewildering complexity of\nthe problems which come before the general historian. The evidence from\nwhich he is to draw his conclusions is at once so multifarious and so\ndoubtful, that a full and distinct view of its bearing on a particular\nquestion is hardly to be attained, and thus the temptation becomes all\nbut irresistible to garble it in support of some rough and ready theory\nof the course of events. The philosophy of history at large, explaining\nthe past and predicting the future phenomena of man\u2019s life in the world\nby reference to general laws, is in fact a subject with which, in the\npresent state of knowledge, even genius aided by wide research seems but\nhardly able to cope. Yet there are departments of it which, though\ndifficult enough, seem comparatively accessible. If the field of enquiry\nbe narrowed from History as a whole to that branch of it which is here\ncalled Culture, the history, not of tribes or nations, but of the\ncondition of knowledge, religion, art, custom, and the like among them,\nthe task of investigation proves to lie within far more moderate\ncompass. We suffer still from the same kind of difficulties which beset\nthe wider argument, but they are much diminished. The evidence is no\nlonger so wildly heterogeneous, but may be more simply classified and\ncompared, while the power of getting rid of extraneous matter, and\ntreating each issue on its own proper set of facts, makes close\nreasoning on the whole more available than in general history. This may\nappear from a brief preliminary examination of the problem, how the\nphenomena of Culture may be classified and arranged, stage by stage, in\na probable order of evolution.\n\nSurveyed in a broad view, the character and habit of mankind at once\ndisplay that similarity and consistency of phenomena which led the\nItalian proverb-maker to declare that \u2018all the world is one country,\u2019\n\u2018tutto il mondo \u00e8 paese.\u2019 To general likeness in human nature on the one\nhand, and to general likeness in the circumstances of life on the other,\nthis similarity and consistency may no doubt be traced, and they may be\nstudied with especial fitness in comparing races near the same grade of\ncivilization. Little respect need be had in such comparisons for date in\nhistory or for place on the map; the ancient Swiss lake-dweller may be\nset beside the medi\u00e6val Aztec, and the Ojibwa of North America beside\nthe Zulu of South Africa. As Dr. Johnson contemptuously said when he had\nread about Patagonians and South Sea Islanders in Hawkesworth\u2019s Voyages,\n\u2018one set of savages is like another.\u2019 How true a generalization this\nreally is, any Ethnological Museum may show. Examine for instance the\nedged and pointed instruments in such a collection; the inventory\nincludes hatchet, adze, chisel, knife, saw, scraper, awl, needle, spear\nand arrow-head, and of these most or all belong with only differences of\ndetail to races the most various. So it is with savage occupations; the\nwood-chopping, fishing with net and line, shooting and spearing game,\nfire-making, cooking, twisting cord and plaiting baskets, repeat\nthemselves with wonderful uniformity in the museum shelves which\nillustrate the life of the lower races from Kamchatka to Tierra del\nFuego, and from Dahome to Hawaii. Even when it comes to comparing\nbarbarous hordes with civilized nations, the consideration thrusts\nitself upon our minds, how far item after item of the life of the lower\nraces passes into analogous proceedings of the higher, in forms not too\nfar changed to be recognized, and sometimes hardly changed at all. Look\nat the modern European peasant using his hatchet and his hoe, see his\nfood boiling or roasting over the log-fire, observe the exact place\nwhich beer holds in his calculation of happiness, hear his tale of the\nghost in the nearest haunted house, and of the farmer\u2019s niece who was\nbewitched with knots in her inside till she fell into fits and died. If\nwe choose out in this way things which have altered little in a long\ncourse of centuries, we may draw a picture where there shall be scarce a\nhand\u2019s breadth difference between an English ploughman and a negro of\nCentral Africa. These pages will be so crowded with evidence of such\ncorrespondence among mankind, that there is no need to dwell upon its\ndetails here, but it may be used at once to override a problem which\nwould complicate the argument, namely, the question of race. For the\npresent purpose it appears both possible and desirable to eliminate\nconsiderations of hereditary varieties or races of man, and to treat\nmankind as homogeneous in nature, though placed in different grades of\ncivilization. The details of the enquiry will, I think, prove that\nstages of culture may be compared without taking into account how far\ntribes who use the same implement, follow the same custom, or believe\nthe same myth, may differ in their bodily configuration and the colour\nof their skin and hair.\n\nA first step in the study of civilization is to dissect it into details,\nand to classify these in their proper groups. Thus, in examining\nweapons, they are to be classed under spear, club, sling, bow and arrow,\nand so forth; among textile arts are to be ranged matting, netting, and\nseveral grades of making and weaving threads; myths are divided under\nsuch headings as myths of sunrise and sunset, eclipse-myths,\nearthquake-myths, local myths which account for the names of places by\nsome fanciful tale, eponymic myths which account for the parentage of a\ntribe by turning its name into the name of an imaginary ancestor; under\nrites and ceremonies occur such practices as the various kinds of\nsacrifice to the ghosts of the dead and to other spiritual beings, the\nturning to the east in worship, the purification of ceremonial or moral\nuncleanness by means of water or fire. Such are a few miscellaneous\nexamples from a list of hundreds, and the ethnographer\u2019s business is to\nclassify such details with a view to making out their distribution in\ngeography and history, and the relations which exist among them. What\nthis task is like, may be almost perfectly illustrated by comparing\nthese details of culture with the species of plants and animals as\nstudied by the naturalist. To the ethnographer the bow and arrow is a\nspecies, the habit of flattening children\u2019s skulls is a species, the\npractice of reckoning numbers by tens is a species. The geographical\ndistribution of these things, and their transmission from region to\nregion, have to be studied as the naturalist studies the geography of\nhis botanical and zoological, species. Just as certain plants and\nanimals are peculiar to certain districts, so it is with such\ninstruments as the Australian boomerang, the Polynesian stick-and-groove\nfor fire-making, the tiny bow and arrow used as a lancet or phleme by\ntribes about the Isthmus of Panama, and in like manner with many an art,\nmyth, or custom, found isolated in a particular field. Just as the\ncatalogue of all the species of plants and animals of a district\nrepresents its Flora and Fauna, so the list of all the items of the\ngeneral life of a people represents that whole which we call its\nculture. And just as distant regions so often produce vegetables and\nanimals which are analogous, though by no means identical, so it is with\nthe details of the civilization of their inhabitants. How good a working\nanalogy there really is between the diffusion of plants and animals and\nthe diffusion of civilization, comes well into view when we notice how\nfar the same causes have produced both at once. In district after\ndistrict, the same causes which have introduced the cultivated plants\nand domesticated animals of civilization, have brought in with them a\ncorresponding art and knowledge. The course of events which carried\nhorses and wheat to America carried with them the use of the gun and the\niron hatchet, while in return the whole world received not only maize,\npotatoes, and turkeys, but the habit of tobacco-smoking and the sailor\u2019s\nhammock.\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\u2014\u2018How can a statement as to customs, myths, beliefs, &c., of a\nsavage tribe be treated as evidence where it depends on the testimony of\nsome traveller or missionary, who may be a superficial observer, more or\nless ignorant of the native language, a careless retailer of unsifted\ntalk, a man prejudiced or even wilfully deceitful?\u2019 This question is,\nindeed, 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 medi\u00e6val Mohammedan in Tartary and a modern Englishman\nin Dahome, 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 set\ndown 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 civilization, 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 facts\nin 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 this means of\nauthentication, that the ethnographer in his library may sometimes\npresume to decide, not only whether a particular explorer is a shrewd,\nhonest observer, but also whether what he reports is conformable to the\ngeneral rules of civilization. \u2018Non quis, sed quid.\u2019\n\nTo turn from the distribution of culture in different countries, to its\ndiffusion within these countries. The quality of mankind which tends\nmost to make the systematic study of civilization possible, is that\nremarkable tacit consensus or agreement which so far induces whole\npopulations to unite in the use of the same language, to follow the same\nreligion and customary law, to settle down to the same general level of\nart and knowledge. It is this state of things which makes it so far\npossible to ignore exceptional facts and to describe nations by a sort\nof general average. It is this state of things which makes it so far\npossible to represent immense masses of details by a few typical facts,\nwhile, these once settled, new cases recorded by new observers simply\nfall into their places to prove the soundness of the classification.\nThere is found to be such regularity in the composition of societies of\nmen, that we can drop individual differences out of sight, and thus can\ngeneralize on the arts and opinions of whole nations, just as, when\nlooking down upon an army from a hill, we forget the individual soldier,\nwhom, in fact, we can scarce distinguish in the mass, while we see each\nregiment as an organized body, spreading or concentrating, moving in\nadvance or in retreat. In some branches of the study of social laws it\nis now possible to call in the aid of statistics, and to set apart\nspecial actions of large mixed communities of men by means of\ntaxgatherers\u2019 schedules, or the tables of the insurance office. Among\nmodern arguments on the laws of human action, none have had a deeper\neffect than generalizations such as those of M. Quetelet, on the\nregularity, not only of such matters as average stature and the annual\nrates of birth and death, but of the recurrence, year after year, of\nsuch obscure and seemingly incalculable products of national life as the\nnumbers of murders and suicides, and the proportion of the very weapons\nof crime. Other striking cases are the annual regularity of persons\nkilled accidentally in the London streets, and of undirected letters\ndropped into post-office letter-boxes. But in examining the culture of\nthe lower races, far from having at command the measured arithmetical\nfacts of modern statistics, we may have to judge of the condition of\ntribes from the imperfect accounts supplied by travellers or\nmissionaries, or even to reason upon relics of prehistoric races of\nwhose very names and languages we are hopelessly ignorant. Now these may\nseem at the first glance sadly indefinite and unpromising materials for\nscientific enquiry. But in fact they are neither indefinite nor\nunpromising, but give evidence that is good and definite so far as it\ngoes. They are data which, for the distinct way in which they severally\ndenote the condition of the tribe they belong to, will actually bear\ncomparison with the statistician\u2019s returns. The fact is that a stone\narrow-head, a carved club, an idol, a grave-mound where slaves and\nproperty have been buried for the use of the dead, an account of a\nsorcerer\u2019s rites in making rain, a table of numerals, the conjugation of\na verb, are things which each express the state of a people as to one\nparticular point of culture, as truly as the tabulated numbers of deaths\nby poison, and of chests of tea imported, express in a different way\nother partial results of the general life of a whole community.\n\nThat a whole nation should have a special dress, special tools and\nweapons, special laws of marriage and property, special moral and\nreligious doctrines, is a remarkable fact, which we notice so little\nbecause we have lived all our lives in the midst of it. It is with such\ngeneral qualities of organized bodies of men that ethnography has\nespecially to deal. Yet, while generalizing on the culture of a tribe or\nnation, and setting aside the peculiarities of the individuals composing\nit as unimportant to the main result, we must be careful not to forget\nwhat makes up this main result. There are people so intent on the\nseparate life of individuals that they cannot grasp a notion of the\naction of a community as a whole\u2014such an observer, incapable of a wide\nview of society, is aptly described in the saying that he \u2018cannot see\nthe forest for the trees.\u2019 But, on the other hand, the philosopher may\nbe so intent upon his general laws of society as to neglect the\nindividual actors of whom that society is made up, and of him it may be\nsaid that he cannot see the trees for the forest. We know how arts,\ncustoms, and ideas are shaped among ourselves by the combined actions of\nmany individuals, of which actions both motive and effect often come\nquite distinctly within our view. The history of an invention, an\nopinion, a ceremony, is a history of suggestion and modification,\nencouragement and opposition, personal gain and party prejudice, and the\nindividuals concerned act each according to his own motives, as\ndetermined by his character and circumstances. Thus sometimes we watch\nindividuals acting for their own ends with little thought of their\neffect on society at large, and sometimes we have to study movements of\nnational life as a whole, where the individuals co-operating in them are\nutterly beyond our observation. But seeing that collective social action\nis the mere resultant of many individual actions, it is clear that these\ntwo methods of enquiry, if rightly followed, must be absolutely\nconsistent.\n\nIn studying both the recurrence of special habits or ideas in several\ndistricts, and their prevalence within each district, there come before\nus ever-reiterated proofs of regular causation producing the phenomena\nof human life, and of laws of maintenance and diffusion according to\nwhich these phenomena settle into permanent standard conditions of\nsociety, at definite stages of culture. But, while giving full\nimportance to the evidence bearing on these standard conditions of\nsociety, let us be careful to avoid a pitfall which may entrap the\nunwary student. Of course the opinions and habits belonging in common to\nmasses of mankind are to a great extent the results of sound judgment\nand practical wisdom. But to a great extent it is not so. That many\nnumerous societies of men should have believed in the influence of the\nevil eye and the existence of a firmament, should have sacrificed slaves\nand goods to the ghosts of the departed, should have handed down\ntraditions of giants slaying monsters and men turning into beasts\u2014all\nthis is ground for holding that such ideas were indeed produced in men\u2019s\nminds by efficient causes, but it is not ground for holding that the\nrites in question are profitable, the beliefs sound, and the history\nauthentic. This may seem at the first glance a truism, but, in fact, it\nis the denial of a fallacy which deeply affects the minds of all but a\nsmall critical minority of mankind. Popularly, what everybody says must\nbe true, what everybody does must be right\u2014\u2018Quod ubique, quod semper,\nquod ab omnibus creditum est, hoc est vere proprieque Catholicum\u2019\u2014and so\nforth. There are various topics, especially in history, law, philosophy,\nand theology, where even the educated people we live among can hardly be\nbrought to see that the cause why men do hold an opinion, or practise a\ncustom, is by no means necessarily a reason why they ought to do so. Now\ncollections of ethnographic evidence bringing so prominently into view\nthe agreement of immense multitudes of men as to certain traditions,\nbeliefs, and usages, are peculiarly liable to be thus improperly used in\ndirect defence of these institutions themselves, even old barbaric\nnations being polled to maintain their opinions against what are called\nmodern ideas. As it has more than once happened to myself to find my\ncollections of traditions and beliefs thus set up to prove their own\nobjective truth, without proper examination of the grounds on which they\nwere actually received, I take this occasion of remarking that the same\nline of argument will serve equally well to demonstrate, by the strong\nand wide consent of nations, that the earth is flat, and nightmare the\nvisit of a demon.\n\nIt being shown that the details of Culture are capable of being\nclassified in a great number of ethnographic groups of arts, beliefs,\ncustoms, and the rest, the consideration comes next how far the facts\narranged in these groups are produced by evolution from one another. It\nneed hardly be pointed out that the groups in question, though held\ntogether each by a common character, are by no means accurately defined.\nTo take up again the natural history illustration, it may be said that\nthey are species which tend to run widely into varieties. And when it\ncomes to the question what relations some of these groups bear to\nothers, it is plain that the student of the habits of mankind has a\ngreat advantage over the student of the species of plants and animals.\nAmong naturalists it is an open question whether a theory of development\nfrom species to species is a record of transitions which actually took\nplace, or a mere ideal scheme serviceable in the classification of\nspecies whose origin was really independent. But among ethnographers\nthere is no such question as to the possibility of species of implements\nor habits or beliefs being developed one out of another, for development\nin Culture is recognized by our most familiar knowledge. Mechanical\ninvention supplies apt examples of the kind of development which affects\ncivilization at large. In the history of fire-arms, the clumsy\nwheel-lock, in which a notched steel wheel revolved by means of a spring\nagainst a piece of pyrites till a spark caught the priming, led to the\ninvention of the more serviceable flint-lock, of which a few still hang\nin the kitchens of our farm-houses for the boys to shoot small birds\nwith at Christmas; the flint-lock in time passed by modification into\nthe percussion-lock, which is just now changing its old-fashioned\narrangement to be adapted from muzzle-loading to breech-loading. The\nmedi\u00e6val astrolabe passed into the quadrant, now discarded in its turn\nby the seaman, who uses the more delicate sextant, and so it is through\nthe history of one art and instrument after another. Such examples of\nprogression are known to us as direct history, but so thoroughly is this\nnotion of development at home in our minds, that by means of it we\nreconstruct lost history without scruple, trusting to general knowledge\nof the principles of human thought and action as a guide in putting the\nfacts in their proper order. Whether chronicle speaks or is silent on\nthe point, no one comparing a long-bow and a cross-bow would doubt that\nthe cross-bow was a development arising from the simpler instrument. So\namong the fire-drills for igniting by friction, it seems clear on the\nface of the matter that the drill worked by a cord or bow is a later\nimprovement on the clumsier primitive instrument twirled between the\nhands. That instructive class of specimens which antiquaries sometimes\ndiscover, bronze celts modelled on the heavy type of the stone hatchet,\nare scarcely explicable except as first steps in the transition from the\nStone Age to the Bronze Age, to be followed soon by the next stage of\nprogress, in which it is discovered that the new material is suited to a\nhandier and less wasteful pattern. And thus, in the other branches of\nour history, there will come again and again into view series of facts\nwhich may be consistently arranged as having followed one another in a\nparticular order of development, but which will hardly bear being turned\nround and made to follow in reversed order. Such for instance are the\nfacts I have here brought forward in a chapter on the Art of Counting,\nwhich tend to prove that as to this point of culture at least, savage\ntribes reached their position by learning and not by unlearning, by\nelevation from a lower rather than by degradation from a higher state.\n\nAmong evidence aiding us to trace the course which the civilization of\nthe world has actually followed, is that great class of facts to denote\nwhich I have found it convenient to introduce the term \u2018survivals.\u2019\nThese are processes, customs, opinions, and so forth, which have been\ncarried on by force of habit into a new state of society different from\nthat in which they had their original home, and they thus remain as\nproofs and examples of an older condition of culture out of which a\nnewer has been evolved. Thus, I know an old Somersetshire woman whose\nhand-loom dates from the time before the introduction of the \u2018flying\nshuttle,\u2019 which new-fangled appliance she has never even learnt to use,\nand I have seen her throw her shuttle from hand to hand in true classic\nfashion; this old woman is not a century behind her times, but she is a\ncase of survival. Such examples often lead us back to the habits of\nhundreds and even thousands of years ago. The ordeal of the Key and\nBible, still in use, is a survival; the Midsummer bonfire is a survival;\nthe Breton peasants\u2019 All Souls\u2019 supper for the spirits of the dead is a\nsurvival. The simple keeping up of ancient habits is only one part of\nthe transition from old into new and changing times. The serious\nbusiness of ancient society may be seen to sink into the sport of later\ngenerations, and its serious belief to linger on in nursery folk-lore,\nwhile superseded habits of old-world life may be modified into new-world\nforms still powerful for good and evil. Sometimes old thoughts and\npractices will burst out afresh, to the amazement of a world that\nthought them long since dead or dying; here survival passes into\nrevival, as has lately happened in so remarkable a way in the history of\nmodern spiritualism, a subject full of instruction from the\nethnographer\u2019s point of view. The study of the principles of survival\nhas, indeed, no small practical importance, for most of what we call\nsuperstition is included within survival, and in this way lies open to\nthe attack of its deadliest enemy, a reasonable explanation.\nInsignificant, moreover, as multitudes of the facts of survival are in\nthemselves, their study is so effective for tracing the course of the\nhistorical development through which alone it is possible to understand\ntheir meaning, that it becomes a vital point of ethnographic research to\ngain the clearest possible insight into their nature. This importance\nmust justify the detail here devoted to an examination of survival, on\nthe evidence of such games, popular sayings, customs, superstitions, and\nthe like, as may serve well to bring into view the manner of its\noperation.\n\nProgress, degradation, survival, revival, modification, are all modes of\nthe connexion that binds together the complex network of civilization.\nIt needs but a glance into the trivial details of our own daily life to\nset us thinking how far we are really its originators, and how far but\nthe transmitters and modifiers of the results of long past ages. Looking\nround the rooms we live in, we may try here how far he who only knows\nhis own time can be capable of rightly comprehending even that. Here is\nthe \u2018honeysuckle\u2019 of Assyria, there the fleur-de-lis of Anjou, a cornice\nwith a Greek border runs round the ceiling, the style of Louis XIV, and\nits parent the Renaissance share the looking-glass between them.\nTransformed, shifted, or mutilated, such elements of art still carry\ntheir history plainly stamped upon them; and if the history yet farther\nbehind is less easy to read, we are not to say that because we cannot\nclearly discern it there is therefore no history there. It is thus even\nwith the fashion of the clothes men wear. The ridiculous little tails of\nthe German postilion\u2019s coat show of themselves how they came to dwindle\nto such absurd rudiments; but the English clergyman\u2019s bands no longer so\nconvey their history to the eye, and look unaccountable enough till one\nhas seen the intermediate stages through which they came down from the\nmore serviceable wide collars, such as Milton wears in his portrait, and\nwhich gave their name to the \u2018band-box\u2019 they used to be kept in. In\nfact, the books of costume, showing how one garment grew or shrank by\ngradual stages and passed into another, illustrate with much force and\nclearness the nature of the change and growth, revival and decay, which\ngo on from year to year in more important matters of life. In books,\nagain, we see each writer not for and by himself, but occupying his\nproper place in history; we look through each philosopher,\nmathematician, chemist, poet, into the background of his\neducation,\u2014through Leibnitz into Descartes, through Dalton into\nPriestley, through Milton into Homer. The study of language has,\nperhaps, done more than any other in removing from our view of human\nthought and action the ideas of chance and arbitrary invention, and in\nsubstituting for them a theory of development by the co-operation of\nindividual men, through processes ever reasonable and intelligible where\nthe facts are fully known. Rudimentary as the science of culture still\nis, the symptoms are becoming very strong that even what seem its most\nspontaneous and motiveless phenomena will, nevertheless, be shown to\ncome within the range of distinct cause and effect as certainly as the\nfacts of mechanics. What would be popularly thought more indefinite and\nuncontrolled than the products of the imagination in myths and fables?\nYet any systematic investigation of mythology, on the basis of a wide\ncollection of evidence, will show plainly enough in such efforts of\nfancy at once a development from stage to stage, and a production of\nuniformity of result from uniformity of cause. Here, as elsewhere,\ncauseless spontaneity is seen to recede farther and farther into shelter\nwithin the dark precincts of ignorance; like chance, that still holds\nits place among the vulgar as a real cause of events otherwise\nunaccountable, while to educated men it has long consciously meant\nnothing but this ignorance itself. It is only when men fail to see the\nline of connexion in events, that they are prone to fall upon the\nnotions of arbitrary impulses, causeless freaks, chance and nonsense and\nindefinite unaccountability. If childish games, purposeless customs,\nabsurd superstitions, are set down as spontaneous because no one can say\nexactly how they came to be, the assertion may remind us of the like\neffect that the eccentric habits of the wild rice-plant had on the\nphilosophy of a Red Indian tribe, otherwise disposed to see in the\nharmony of nature the effects of one controlling personal will. The\nGreat Spirit, said these Sioux theologians, made all things except the\nwild rice; but the wild rice came by chance.\n\n\u2018Man,\u2019 said Wilhelm von Humboldt, \u2018ever connects on from what lies at\nhand (der Mensch kn\u00fcpft immer an Vorhandenes an).\u2019 The notion of the\ncontinuity of civilization contained in this maxim is no barren\nphilosophic principle, but is at once made practical by the\nconsideration that they who wish to understand their own lives ought to\nknow the stages through which their opinions and habits have become what\nthey are. Auguste Comte scarcely overstated the necessity of this study\nof development when he declared at the beginning of his \u2018Positive\nPhilosophy\u2019 that \u2018no conception can be understood except through its\nhistory,\u2019 and his phrase will bear extension to culture at large. To\nexpect to look modern life in the face and comprehend it by mere\ninspection, is a philosophy whose weakness can easily be tested. Imagine\nany one explaining the trivial saying, \u2018a little bird told me,\u2019 without\nknowing of the old belief in the language of birds and beasts, to which\nDr. Dasent, in the introduction to the Norse Tales, so reasonably traces\nits origin. Attempts to explain by the light of reason things which want\nthe light of history to show their meaning, may be instanced from\nBlackstone\u2019s Commentaries. To Blackstone\u2019s mind, the very right of the\ncommoner to turn his beast out to graze on the common, finds its origin\nand explanation in the feudal system. \u2018For, when lords of manors granted\nout parcels of land to tenants, for services either done or to be done,\nthese tenants could not plough or manure the land without beasts; these\nbeasts could not be sustained without pasture; and pasture could not be\nhad but in the lord\u2019s wastes, and on the uninclosed fallow grounds of\nthemselves and the other tenants. The law therefore annexed this right\nof common, as inseparably incident, to the grant of the lands; and this\nwas the original of common appendant,\u2019 &c.[2] Now though there is\nnothing irrational in this explanation, it does not agree at all with\nthe Teutonic land-law which prevailed in England long before the Norman\nConquest, and of which the remains have never wholly disappeared. In the\nold village-community even the arable land, lying in the great common\nfields which may still be traced in our country, had not yet passed into\nseparate property, while the pasturage in the fallows and stubbles and\non the waste belonged to the householders in common. Since those days,\nthe change from communal to individual ownership has mostly transformed\nthis old-world system, but the right which the peasant enjoys of\npasturing his cattle on the common still remains, not as a concession to\nfeudal tenants, but as possessed by the commoners before the lord ever\nclaimed the ownership of the waste. It is always unsafe to detach a\ncustom from its hold on past events, treating it as an isolated fact to\nbe simply disposed of by some plausible explanation.\n\nIn carrying on the great task of rational ethnography, the investigation\nof the causes which have produced the phenomena of culture, and of the\nlaws to which they are subordinate, it is desirable to work out as\nsystematically as possible a scheme of evolution of this culture along\nits many lines. In the following chapter, on the Development of Culture,\nan attempt is made to sketch a theoretical course of civilization among\nmankind, such as appears on the whole most accordant with the evidence.\nBy comparing the various stages of civilization among races known to\nhistory, with the aid of arch\u00e6ological inference from the remains of\nprehistoric tribes, it seems possible to judge in a rough way of an\nearly general condition of man, which from our point of view is to be\nregarded as a primitive condition, whatever yet earlier state may in\nreality have lain behind it. This hypothetical primitive condition\ncorresponds in a considerable degree to that of modern savage tribes,\nwho, in spite of their difference and distance, have in common certain\nelements of civilization, which seem remains of an early state of the\nhuman race at large. If this hypothesis be true, then, notwithstanding\nthe continual interference of degeneration, the main tendency of culture\nfrom prim\u00e6val up to modern times has been from savagery towards\ncivilization. On the problem of this relation of savage to civilized\nlife, almost every one of the thousands of facts discussed in the\nsucceeding chapters has its direct bearing. Survival in Culture, placing\nall along the course of advancing civilization way-marks full of meaning\nto those who can decipher their signs, even now sets up in our midst\nprim\u00e6val monuments of barbaric thought and life. Its investigation tells\nstrongly in favour of the view that the European may find among the\nGreenlanders or Maoris many a trait for reconstructing the picture of\nhis own primitive ancestors. Next comes the problem of the Origin of\nLanguage. Obscure as many parts of this problem still remain, its\nclearer positions lie open to the investigation whether speech took its\norigin among mankind in the savage state, and the result of the enquiry\nis that consistently with all known evidence, this may have been the\ncase. From the examination of the Art of Counting a far more definite\nconsequence is shown. It may be confidently asserted, that not only is\nthis important art found in a rudimentary state among savage tribes, but\nthat satisfactory evidence proves numeration to have been developed by\nrational invention from this low stage up to that in which we ourselves\npossess it. The examination of Mythology contained in the first volume,\nis for the most part made from a special point of view, on evidence\ncollected for a special purpose, that of tracing the relation between\nthe myths of savage tribes and their analogues among more civilized\nnations. The issue of such enquiry goes far to prove that the earliest\nmyth-maker arose and flourished among savage hordes, setting on foot an\nart which his more cultured successors would carry on, till its results\ncame to be fossilized in superstition, mistaken for history, shaped and\ndraped in poetry, or cast aside as lying folly.\n\nNowhere, perhaps, are broad views of historical development more needed\nthan in the study of religion. Notwithstanding all that has been written\nto make the world acquainted with the lower theologies, the popular\nideas of their place in history and their relation to the faiths of\nhigher nations are still of the medi\u00e6val type. It is wonderful to\ncontrast some missionary journals with Max M\u00fcller\u2019s Essays, and to set\nthe unappreciating hatred and ridicule that is lavished by narrow\nhostile zeal on Brahmanism, Buddhism, Zoroastrism, besides the catholic\nsympathy with which deep and wide knowledge can survey those ancient and\nnoble phases of man\u2019s religious consciousness; nor, because the\nreligions of savage tribes may be rude and primitive compared with the\ngreat Asiatic systems, do they lie too low for interest and even for\nrespect. The question really lies between understanding and\nmisunderstanding them. Few who will give their minds to master the\ngeneral principles of savage religion will ever again think it\nridiculous, or the knowledge of it superfluous to the rest of mankind.\nFar from its beliefs and practices being a rubbish-heap of miscellaneous\nfolly, they are consistent and logical in so high a degree as to begin,\nas soon as even roughly classified, to display the principles of their\nformation and development; and these principles prove to be essentially\nrational, though working in a mental condition of intense and inveterate\nignorance. It is with a sense of attempting an investigation which bears\nvery closely on the current theology of our own day, that I have set\nmyself to examine systematically, among the lower races, the development\nof Animism; that is to say, the doctrine of souls and other spiritual\nbeings in general. More than half of the present work is occupied with a\nmass of evidence from all regions of the world, displaying the nature\nand meaning of this great element of the Philosophy of Religion, and\ntracing its transmission, expansion, restriction, modification, along\nthe course of history into the midst of our own modern thought. Nor are\nthe questions of small practical moment which have to be raised in a\nsimilar attempt to trace the development of certain prominent Rites and\nCeremonies\u2014customs so full of instruction as to the inmost powers of\nreligion, whose outward expression and practical result they are.\n\nIn these investigations, however, made rather from an ethnographic than\na theological point of view, there has seemed little need of entering\ninto direct controversial argument, which indeed I have taken pains to\navoid as far as possible. The connexion which runs through religion,\nfrom its rudest forms up to the status of an enlightened Christianity,\nmay be conveniently treated of with little recourse to dogmatic\ntheology. The rites of sacrifice and purification may be studied in\ntheir stages of development without entering into questions of their\nauthority and value, nor does an examination of the successive phases of\nthe world\u2019s belief in a future life demand a discussion of the arguments\nadduced for or against the doctrine itself. The ethnographic results may\nthen be left as materials for professed theologians, and it will not\nperhaps be long before evidence so fraught with meaning shall take its\nlegitimate place. To fall back once again on the analogy of natural\nhistory, the time may soon come when it will be thought as unreasonable\nfor a scientific student of theology not to have a competent\nacquaintance with the principles of the religions of the lower races, as\nfor a physiologist to look with the contempt of past centuries on\nevidence derived from the lower forms of life, deeming the structure of\nmere invertebrate creatures matter unworthy of his philosophic study.\n\nNot merely as a matter of curious research, but as an important\npractical guide to the understanding of the present and the shaping of\nthe future, the investigation into the origin and early development of\ncivilization must be pushed on zealously. Every possible avenue of\nknowledge must be explored, every door tried to see if it is open. No\nkind of evidence need be left untouched on the score of remoteness or\ncomplexity, of minuteness or triviality. The tendency of modern enquiry\nis more and more towards the conclusion that if law is anywhere, it is\neverywhere. To despair of what a conscientious collection and study of\nfacts may lead to, and to declare any problem insoluble because\ndifficult and far off, is distinctly to be on the wrong side in science;\nand he who will choose a hopeless task may set himself to discover the\nlimits of discovery. One remembers Comte starting in his account of\nastronomy with a remark on the necessary limitation of our knowledge of\nthe stars: we conceive, he tells us, the possibility of determining\ntheir form, distance, size, and movement, whilst we should never by any\nmethod be able to study their chemical composition, their mineralogical\nstructure, &c. Had the philosopher lived to see the application of\nspectrum analysis to this very problem, his proclamation of the\ndispiriting doctrine of necessary ignorance would perhaps have been\nrecanted in favour of a more hopeful view. And it seems to be with the\nphilosophy of remote human life somewhat as with the study of the nature\nof the celestial bodies. The processes to be made out in the early\nstages of our mental evolution lie distant from us in time as the stars\nlie distant from us in space, but the laws of the universe are not\nlimited with the direct observation of our senses. There is vast\nmaterial to be used in our enquiry; many workers are now busied in\nbringing this material into shape, though little may have yet been done\nin proportion to what remains to do; and already it seems not too much\nto say that the vague outlines of a philosophy of prim\u00e6val history are\nbeginning to come within our view.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  Blackstone, \u2018Commentaries on the Laws of England,\u2019 bk. II., ch. 3. The\n  above example replaces that given in former editions. Another example\n  may be found in his explanation of the origin of deodand, bk. I., ch.\n  8, as designed, in the blind days of popery, as an expiation for the\n  souls of such as were snatched away by sudden death; see below, p.\n  287. [Note to 3rd ed.]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n                      THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE.\n\n    Stages of culture, industrial, intellectual, political,\n    moral\u2014Development of culture in great measure corresponds\n    with transition from savage through barbaric to civilized\n    life\u2014Progression-theory\u2014Degeneration-theory\u2014Development-theory\n    includes both, the one as primary, the other as secondary\u2014Historical\n    and traditional evidence not available as to low stages\n    of culture\u2014Historical evidence as to principles of\n    Degeneration\u2014Ethnological evidence as to rise and fall in culture\n    from comparison of different levels of culture in branches of the\n    same race\u2014Extent of historically recorded antiquity of\n    civilization\u2014Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology extends the antiquity of man in\n    low stages of civilization\u2014Traces of Stone Age, corroborated by\n    megalithic structures, lake dwellings, shell-heaps, burial-places,\n    &c., prove original low culture throughout the world\u2014Stages of\n    Progressive Development in industrial arts.\n\n\nIn taking up the problem of the development of culture as a branch of\nethnological research, a first proceeding is to obtain a means of\nmeasurement. Seeking something like a definite line along which to\nreckon progression and retrogression in civilization, we may apparently\nfind it best in the classification of real tribes and nations, past and\npresent. Civilization actually existing among mankind in different\ngrades, we are enabled to estimate and compare it by positive examples.\nThe educated world of Europe and America practically settles a standard\nby simply placing its own nations at one end of the social series and\nsavage tribes at the other, arranging the rest of mankind between these\nlimits according as they correspond more closely to savage or to\ncultured life. The principal criteria of classification are the absence\nor presence, high or low development, of the industrial arts, especially\nmetal-working, manufacture of implements and vessels, agriculture,\narchitecture, &c., the extent of scientific knowledge, the definiteness\nof moral principles, the condition of religious belief and ceremony, the\ndegree of social and political organization, and so forth. Thus, on the\ndefinite basis of compared facts, ethnographers are able to set up at\nleast a rough scale of civilization. Few would dispute that the\nfollowing races are arranged rightly in order of culture:\u2014Australian,\nTahitian, Aztec, Chinese, Italian. By treating the development of\ncivilization on this plain ethnographic basis, many difficulties may be\navoided which have embarrassed its discussion. This may be seen by a\nglance at the relation which theoretical principles of civilization bear\nto the transitions to be observed as matter of fact between the extremes\nof savage and cultured life.\n\nFrom an ideal point of view, civilization may be looked upon as the\ngeneral improvement of mankind by higher organization of the individual\nand of society, to the end of promoting at once man\u2019s goodness, power,\nand happiness. This theoretical civilization does in no small measure\ncorrespond with actual civilization, as traced by comparing savagery\nwith barbarism, and barbarism with modern educated life. So far as we\ntake into account only material and intellectual culture, this is\nespecially true. Acquaintance with the physical laws of the world, and\nthe accompanying power of adapting nature to man\u2019s own ends, are, on the\nwhole, lowest among savages, mean among barbarians, and highest among\nmodern educated nations. Thus a transition from the savage state to our\nown would be, practically, that very progress of art and knowledge which\nis one main element in the development of culture.\n\nBut even those students who hold most strongly that the general course\nof civilization, as measured along the scale of races from savages to\nourselves, is progress towards the benefit of mankind, must admit many\nand manifold exceptions. Industrial and intellectual culture by no means\nadvances uniformly in all its branches, and in fact excellence in\nvarious of its details is often obtained under conditions which keep\nback culture as a whole. It is true that these exceptions seldom swamp\nthe general rule; and the Englishman, admitting that he does not climb\ntrees like the wild Australian, nor track game like the savage of the\nBrazilian forest, nor compete with the ancient Etruscan and the modern\nChinese in delicacy of goldsmith\u2019s work and ivory carving, nor reach the\nclassic Greek level of oratory and sculpture, may yet claim for himself\na general condition above any of these races. But there actually have to\nbe taken into account developments of science and art which tend\ndirectly against culture. To have learnt to give poison secretly and\neffectually, to have raised a corrupt literature to pestilent\nperfection, to have organized a successful scheme to arrest free enquiry\nand proscribe free expression, are works of knowledge and skill whose\nprogress toward their goal has hardly conduced to the general good.\nThus, even in comparing mental and artistic culture among several\npeoples, the balance of good and ill is not quite easy to strike.\n\nIf not only knowledge and art, but at the same time moral and political\nexcellence, be taken into consideration, it becomes yet harder to reckon\non an ideal scale the advance or decline from stage to stage of culture.\nIn fact, a combined intellectual and moral measure of human condition is\nan instrument which no student has as yet learnt properly to handle.\nEven granting that intellectual, moral, and political life may, on a\nbroad view, be seen to progress together, it is obvious that they are\nfar from advancing with equal steps. It may be taken as man\u2019s rule of\nduty in the world, that he shall strive to know as well as he can find\nout, and to do as well as he knows how. But the parting asunder of these\ntwo great principles, that separation of intelligence from virtue which\naccounts for so much of the wrong-doing of mankind, is continually seen\nto happen in the great movements of civilization. As one conspicuous\ninstance of what all history stands to prove, if we study the early ages\nof Christianity, we may see men with minds pervaded by the new religion\nof duty, holiness, and love, yet at the same time actually falling away\nin intellectual life, thus at once vigorously grasping one half of\ncivilization, and contemptuously casting off the other. Whether in high\nranges or in low of human life, it may be seen that advance of culture\nseldom results at once in unmixed good. Courage, honesty, generosity,\nare virtues which may suffer, at least for a time, by the development of\na sense of value of life and property. The savage who adopts something\nof foreign civilization too often loses his ruder virtues without\ngaining an equivalent. The white invader or colonist, though\nrepresenting on the whole a higher moral standard than the savage he\nimproves or destroys, often represents his standard very ill, and at\nbest can hardly claim to substitute a life stronger, nobler, and purer\nat every point than that which he supersedes. The onward movement from\nbarbarism has dropped behind it more than one quality of barbaric\ncharacter which cultured modern men look back on with regret, and will\neven strive to regain by futile attempts to stop the course of history,\nand to restore the past in the midst of the present. So it is with\nsocial institutions. The slavery recognised by savage and barbarous\nraces is preferable in kind to that which existed for centuries in late\nEuropean colonies. The relation of the sexes among many savage tribes is\nmore healthy than among the richer classes of the Mohammedan world. As a\nsupreme authority of government, the savage councils of chiefs and\nelders compare favourably with the unbridled despotism under which so\nmany cultured races have groaned. The Creek Indians, asked concerning\ntheir religion, replied that where agreement was not to be had, it was\nbest to \u2018let every man paddle his canoe his own way:\u2019 and after long\nages of theological strife and persecution, the modern world seems\ncoming to think these savages not far wrong.\n\nAmong accounts of savage life, it is not, indeed, uncommon to find\ndetails of admirable moral and social excellence. To take one prominent\ninstance, Lieut. Bruijn Kops and Mr. Wallace have described, among the\nrude Papuans of the Eastern Archipelago, a habitual truthfulness,\nrightfulness, and kindliness which it would be hard to match in the\ngeneral moral life of Persia or India, to say nothing of many a\ncivilized European district.[3] Such tribes may count as the \u2018blameless\nEthiopians\u2019 of the modern world, and from them an important lesson may\nbe learnt. Ethnographers who seek in modern savages types of the\nremotely ancient human race at large, are bound by such examples to\nconsider the rude life of prim\u00e6val man under favourable conditions to\nhave been, in its measure, a good and happy life. On the other hand, the\npictures drawn by some travellers of savagery as a kind of paradisiacal\nstate may be taken too exclusively from the bright side. It is remarked\nas to these very Papuans, that Europeans whose intercourse with them has\nbeen hostile become so impressed with the wild-beast-like cunning of\ntheir attacks, as hardly to believe in their having feelings in common\nwith civilized men. Our Polar explorers may well speak in kindly terms\nof the industry, the honesty, the cheerful considerate politeness of the\nEsquimaux; but it must be remembered that these rude people are on their\nbest behaviour with foreigners, and that their character is apt to be\nfoul and brutal where they have nothing to expect or fear. The Caribs\nare described as a cheerful, modest, courteous race, and so honest among\nthemselves that if they missed anything out of a house they said quite\nnaturally: \u2018There has been a Christian here.\u2019 Yet the malignant ferocity\nwith which these estimable people tortured their prisoners of war with\nknife and fire-brand and red pepper, and then cooked and ate them in\nsolemn debauch, gave fair reason for the name of Carib (Cannibal) to\nbecome the generic name of man-eaters in European languages.[4] So when\nwe read descriptions of the hospitality, the gentleness, the bravery,\nthe deep religious feeling of the North American Indians, we admit their\nclaims to our sincere admiration; but we must not forget that they were\nhospitable literally to a fault, that their gentleness would pass with a\nflash of anger into frenzy, that their bravery was stained with cruel\nand treacherous malignity, that their religion expressed itself in\nabsurd belief and useless ceremony. The ideal savage of the 18th century\nmay be held up as a living reproof to vicious and frivolous London; but\nin sober fact, a Londoner who should attempt to lead the atrocious life\nwhich the real savage may lead with impunity and even respect, would be\na criminal only allowed to follow his savage models during his short\nintervals out of gaol. Savage moral standards are real enough, but they\nare far looser and weaker than ours. We may, I think, apply the\noften-repeated comparison of savages to children as fairly to their\nmoral as to their intellectual condition. The better savage social life\nseems in but unstable equilibrium, liable to be easily upset by a touch\nof distress, temptation, or violence, and then it becomes the worse\nsavage life, which we know by so many dismal and hideous examples.\nAltogether, it may be admitted that some rude tribes lead a life to be\nenvied by some barbarous races, and even by the outcasts of higher\nnations. But that any known savage tribe would not be improved by\njudicious civilization, is a proposition which no moralist would dare to\nmake; while the general tenour of the evidence goes far to justify the\nview that on the whole the civilized man is not only wiser and more\ncapable than the savage, but also better and happier, and that the\nbarbarian stands between.\n\nIt might, perhaps, seem practicable to compare the whole average of the\ncivilization of two peoples, or of the same people in different ages, by\nreckoning each, item by item, to a sort of sum-total, and striking a\nbalance between them, much as an appraiser compares the value of two\nstocks of merchandise, differ as they may both in quantity and quality.\nBut the few remarks here made will have shown how loose must be the\nworking-out of these rough-and-ready estimates of culture. In fact, much\nof the labour spent in investigating the progress and decline of\ncivilization has been mis-spent, in premature attempts to treat that as\na whole which is as yet only susceptible of divided study. The present\ncomparatively narrow argument on the development of culture at any rate\navoids this greatest perplexity. It takes cognizance principally of\nknowledge, art, and custom, and indeed only very partial cognizance\nwithin this field, the vast range of physical, political, social, and\nethical considerations being left all but untouched. Its standard of\nreckoning progress and decline is not that of ideal good and evil, but\nof movement along a measured line from grade to grade of actual\nsavagery, barbarism, and civilization. The thesis which I venture to\nsustain, within limits, is simply this, that the savage state in some\nmeasure represents an early condition of mankind, out of which the\nhigher culture has gradually been developed or evolved, by processes\nstill in regular operation as of old, the result showing that, on the\nwhole, progress has far prevailed over relapse.\n\nOn this proposition, the main tendency of human society during its long\nterm of existence has been to pass from a savage to a civilized state.\nNow all must admit a great part of this assertion to be not only truth,\nbut truism. Referred to direct history, a great section of it proves to\nbelong not to the domain of speculation, but to that of positive\nknowledge. It is mere matter of chronicle that modern civilization is a\ndevelopment of medi\u00e6val civilization, which again is a development from\ncivilization of the order represented in Greece, Assyria, or Egypt. Thus\nthe higher culture being clearly traced back to what may be called the\nmiddle culture, the question which remains is whether this middle\nculture may be traced back to the lower culture, that is, to savagery.\nTo affirm this, is merely to assert that the same kind of development in\nculture which has gone on inside our range of knowledge has also gone on\noutside it, its course of proceeding being unaffected by our having or\nnot having reporters present. If any one holds that human thought and\naction were worked out in prim\u00e6val times according to laws essentially\nother than those of the modern world, it is for him to prove by valid\nevidence this anomalous state of things, otherwise the doctrine of\npermanent principle will hold good, as in astronomy or geology. That the\ntendency of culture has been similar throughout the existence of human\nsociety, and that we may fairly judge from its known historic course\nwhat its prehistoric course may have been, is a theory clearly entitled\nto precedence as a fundamental principle of ethnographic research.\n\nGibbon in his \u2018Roman Empire\u2019 expresses in a few vigorous sentences his\ntheory of the course of culture, as from savagery upward. Judged by the\nknowledge of nearly a century later, his remarks cannot, indeed, pass\nunquestioned. Especially he seems to rely with misplaced confidence on\ntraditions of archaic rudeness, to exaggerate the lowness of savage\nlife, to underestimate the liability to decay of the ruder arts, and in\nhis view of the effect of high on low civilization, to dwell too\nexclusively on the brighter side. But, on the whole, the great\nhistorian\u2019s judgment seems so substantially that of the unprejudiced\nmodern student of the progressionist school, that I gladly quote the\npassage here at length, and take it as a text to represent the\ndevelopment theory of culture:\u2014\u2018The discoveries of ancient and modern\nnavigators, and the domestic history, or tradition, of the most\nenlightened nations, represent the _human savage_ naked both in mind and\nbody, and destitute of laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language.\nFrom this abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal state of\nman, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to fertilise the\nearth, to traverse the ocean, and to measure the heavens. His progress\nin the improvement and exercise of his mental and corporeal faculties\nhas been irregular and various; infinitely slow in the beginning, and\nincreasing by degrees with redoubled velocity: ages of laborious ascent\nhave been followed by a moment of rapid downfall; and the several\nclimates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness.\nYet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and\ndiminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human\nspecies may aspire in their advances towards perfection; but it may\nsafely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is\nchanged, will relapse into their original barbarism. The improvements of\nsociety may be viewed under a threefold aspect. 1. The poet or\nphilosopher illustrates his age and country by the efforts of a _single_\nmind; but these superior powers of reason or fancy are rare and\nspontaneous productions; and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or Newton,\nwould excite less admiration, if they could be created by the will of a\nprince, or the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The benefits of law and\npolicy, of trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences, are more solid\nand permanent; and _many_ individuals may be qualified, by education and\ndiscipline, to promote, in their respective stations, the interest of\nthe community. But this general order is the effect of skill and labour;\nand the complex machinery may be decayed by time, or injured by\nviolence. 3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least,\nmore necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents, or\nnational subordination; without the powers of _one_, or the union of\n_many_. Each village, each family, each individual, must always possess\nboth ability and inclination, to perpetuate the use of fire and of\nmetals; the propagation and service of domestic animals; the methods of\nhunting and fishing; the rudiments of navigation; the imperfect\ncultivation of corn, or other nutritive grain; and the simple practice\nof the mechanic trades. Private genius and public industry may be\nextirpated; but these hardy plants survive the tempest, and strike an\neverlasting root into the most unfavourable soil. The splendid days of\nAugustus and Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the\nbarbarians subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the\ninvention, or emblem of Saturn, still continued annually to mow the\nharvests of Italy; and the human feasts of L\u00e6strigons have never been\nrenewed on the coast of Campania. Since the first discovery of the arts,\nwar, commerce, and religious zeal, have diffused, among the savages of\nthe Old and New World, these inestimable gifts: they have been\nsuccessively propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore\nacquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has\nincreased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the\nknowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.\u2019[5]\n\nThis progression-theory of civilization may be contrasted with its\nrival, the degeneration-theory, in the dashing invective of Count Joseph\nde Maistre, written toward the beginning of the 19th century. \u2018Nous\npartons toujours,\u2019 he says, \u2018de l\u2019hypoth\u00e8se banale que l\u2019homme s\u2019est\n\u00e9lev\u00e9 graduellement de la barbarie \u00e0 la science et \u00e0 la civilisation.\nC\u2019est le r\u00eave favori, c\u2019est l\u2019erreur-m\u00e8re, et comme dit l\u2019\u00e9cole le\nproto-pseudes de notre si\u00e8cle. Mais si les philosophes de ce malheureux\nsi\u00e8cle, avec l\u2019horrible perversit\u00e9 que nous leur avons connue, et qui\ns\u2019obstinent encore malgr\u00e9 les avertissements qu\u2019ils ont re\u00e7us, avaient\nposs\u00e9d\u00e9 de plus quelques-unes de ces connaissances qui ont d\u00fb\nn\u00e9cessairement appartenir aux premiers hommes, &c.\u2019[6] The\ndegeneration-theory, which this eloquent antagonist of \u2018modern ideas\u2019\nindeed states in an extreme shape, has received the sanction of men of\ngreat learning and ability. It has practically resolved itself into two\nassumptions, first, that the history of culture began with the\nappearance on earth of a semi-civilized race of men, and second, that\nfrom this stage culture has proceeded in two ways, backward to produce\nsavages, and forward to produce civilized men. The idea of the original\ncondition of man being one of more or less high culture, must have a\ncertain prominence given to it on account of its considerable hold on\npublic opinion. As to definite evidence, however, it does not seem to\nhave any ethnological basis whatever. Indeed, I scarcely think that a\nstronger counter-persuasion could be used on an intelligent student\ninclined to the ordinary degeneration-theory than to induce him to\nexamine critically and impartially the arguments of the advocates on his\nown side. It must be borne in mind, however, that the grounds on which\nthis theory has been held have generally been rather theological than\nethnological. The strength of the position it has thus occupied may be\nwell instanced from the theories adopted by two eminent French writers\nof the 18th century, which in a remarkable way piece together a belief\nin degeneration and an argument for progression. De Brosses, whose whole\nintellectual nature turned to the progression-theory, argued that by\nstudying what actually now happens \u2018we may trace men upward from the\nsavage state to which the flood and dispersion had reduced them.\u2019[7] And\nGoguet, holding that the pre-existing arts perished at the deluge, was\nthus left free to work out on the most thorough-going progressionist\nprinciples his theories of the invention of fire, cooking, agriculture,\nlaw, and so forth, among tribes thus reduced to a condition of low\nsavagery.[8] At the present time it is not unusual for the origin of\ncivilization to be treated as matter of dogmatic theology. It has\nhappened to me more than once to be assured from the pulpit that the\ntheories of ethnologists who consider man to have risen from a low\noriginal condition are delusive fancies, it being revealed truth that\nman was originally in a high condition. Now as a matter of Biblical\ncriticism it must be remembered that a large proportion of modern\ntheologians are far from accepting such a dogma. But in investigating\nthe problem of early civilization, the claim to ground scientific\nopinion upon a basis of revelation is in itself objectionable. It would\nbe, I think, inexcusable if students who have seen in Astronomy and\nGeology the unhappy results of attempting to base science on religion,\nshould countenance a similar attempt in Ethnology.\n\nBy long experience of the course of human society, the principle of\ndevelopment in culture has become so ingrained in our philosophy that\nethnologists, of whatever school, hardly doubt but that, whether by\nprogress or degradation, savagery and civilization are connected as\nlower and higher stages of one formation. As such, then, two principal\ntheories claim to account for their relation. As to the first\nhypothesis, which takes savage life as in some sort representing an\nearly human state whence higher states were, in time, developed, it has\nto be noticed that advocates of this progression-theory are apt to look\nback toward yet lower original conditions of mankind. It has been truly\nremarked that the modern naturalist\u2019s doctrine of progressive\ndevelopment has encouraged a train of thought singularly accordant with\nthe Epicurean theory of man\u2019s early existence on earth, in a condition\nnot far removed from that of the lower animals. On such a view, savage\nlife itself would be a far advanced condition. If the advance of culture\nbe regarded as taking place along one general line, then existing\nsavagery stands directly intermediate between animal and civilized life;\nif along different lines, then savagery and civilization may be\nconsidered as at least indirectly connected through their common origin.\nThe method and evidence here employed are not, however, suitable for the\ndiscussion of this remoter part of the problem of civilization. Nor is\nit necessary to enquire how, under this or any other theory, the savage\nstate first came to be on earth. It is enough that, by some means or\nother, it has actually come into existence; and so far as it may serve\nas a guide in inferring an early condition of the human race at large,\nso far the argument takes the very practicable shape of a discussion\nturning rather on actual than imaginary states of society. The second\nhypothesis, which regards higher culture as original, and the savage\ncondition as produced from it by a course of degeneration, at once cuts\nthe hard knot of the origin of culture. It takes for granted a\nsupernatural interference, as where Archbishop Whately simply refers to\nmiraculous revelation that condition above the level of barbarism which\nhe considers to have been man\u2019s original state.[9] It may be\nincidentally remarked, however, that the doctrine of original\ncivilization bestowed on man by divine intervention, by no means\nnecessarily involves the view that this original civilization was at a\nhigh level. Its advocates are free to choose their starting-point of\nculture above, at, or below the savage condition, as may on the evidence\nseem to them most reasonable.\n\nThe two theories which thus account for the relation of savage to\ncultured life may be contrasted according to their main character, as\nthe progression-theory and the degradation-theory. Yet of course the\nprogression-theory recognizes degradation, and the degradation-theory\nrecognizes progression, as powerful influences in the course of culture.\nUnder proper limitations the principles of both theories are conformable\nto historical knowledge, which shows us, on the one hand, that the state\nof the higher nations was reached by progression from a lower state,\nand, on the other hand, that culture gained by progression may be lost\nby degradation. If in this enquiry we should be obliged to end in the\ndark, at any rate we need not begin there. History, taken as our guide\nin explaining the different stages of civilization, offers a theory\nbased on actual experience. This is a development-theory, in which both\nadvance and relapse have their acknowledged places. But so far as\nhistory is to be our criterion, progression is primary and degradation\nsecondary; culture must be gained before it can be lost. Moreover, in\nstriking a balance between the effects of forward and backward movement\nin civilization, it must be borne in mind how powerfully the diffusion\nof culture acts in preserving the results of progress from the attacks\nof degeneration. A progressive movement in culture spreads, and becomes\nindependent of the fate of its originators. What is produced in some\nlimited district is diffused over a wider and wider area, where the\nprocess of effectual \u2018stamping out\u2019 becomes more and more difficult.\nThus it is even possible for the habits and inventions of races long\nextinct to remain as the common property of surviving nations; and the\ndestructive actions which make such havoc with the civilizations of\nparticular districts fail to destroy the civilization of the world.\n\nThe enquiry as to the relation of savagery to barbarism and\nsemi-civilization lies almost entirely in pr\u00e6-historic or extra-historic\nregions. This is of course an unfavourable condition, and must be\nfrankly accepted. Direct history hardly tells anything of the changes of\nsavage culture, except where in contact with and under the dominant\ninfluence of foreign civilization, a state of things which is little to\nour present purpose. Periodical examinations of low races otherwise left\nisolated to work out their own destinies, would be interesting evidence\nto the student of civilization if they could be made; but unfortunately\nthey cannot. The lower races, wanting documentary memorials, loose in\npreserving tradition, and ever ready to clothe myth in its shape, can\nseldom be trusted in their stories of long-past ages. History is oral or\nwritten record which can be satisfactorily traced into contact with the\nevents it describes; and perhaps no account of the course of culture in\nits lower stages can satisfy this stringent criterion. Traditions may be\nurged in support either of the progression-theory or of the\ndegradation-theory. These traditions may be partly true, and must be\npartly untrue; but whatever truth or untruth they may contain, there is\nsuch difficulty in separating man\u2019s recollection of what was from his\nspeculation as to what might have been, that ethnology seems not likely\nto gain much by attempts to judge of early stages of civilization on a\ntraditional basis. The problem is one which has occupied the philosophic\nmind even in savage and barbaric life, and has been solved by\nspeculations asserted as facts, and by traditions which are, in great\nmeasure, mere realized theories. The Chinese can show, with all due\ngravity, the records of their ancient dynasties and tell us how in old\ntimes their ancestors dwelt in caves, clothed themselves with leaves,\nand ate raw flesh, till, under such and such rulers, they were taught to\nbuild huts, prepare skins for garments, and make fire.[10] Lucretius can\ndescribe to us, in his famous lines, the large-boned, hardy, lawless,\nprim\u00e6val race of man, living the roving life of the wild beasts which\nthey overcame with stones and heavy clubs, devouring berries and acorns,\nignorant as yet of fire, and agriculture, and the use of skins for\nclothing. From this state the Epicurean poet traces up the development\nof culture, beginning outside but ending inside the range of human\nmemory.[11] To the same class belong those legends which, starting from\nan ancient savage state, describe its elevation by divine civilizers:\nthis, which may be called the supernatural progression-theory, is\nexemplified in the familiar culture-traditions of Peru and Italy.\n\nBut other minds, following a different ideal track from the present to\nthe past, have seen in a far different shape the early stages of human\nlife. Those men whose eyes are always turned to look back on the wisdom\nof the ancients, those who by a common confusion of thought ascribe to\nmen of old the wisdom of old men, those who hold fast to some\nonce-honoured scheme of life which new schemes are superseding before\ntheir eyes, are apt to carry back their thought of present degeneration\ninto far-gone ages, till they reach a period of prim\u00e6val glory. The\nParsi looks back to the happy rule of King Yima, when men and cattle\nwere immortal, when water and trees never dried up and food was\ninexhaustible, when there was no cold nor heat, no envy nor old age.[12]\nThe Buddhist looks back to the age of glorious soaring beings who had no\nsin, no sex, no want of food, till the unhappy hour when, tasting a\ndelicious scum that formed upon the surface of the earth, they fell into\nevil, and in time became degraded to eat rice, to bear children, to\nbuild houses, to divide property, and to establish caste. In after ages,\nrecord preserves details of the continuing course of degeneration. It\nwas King Chetiya who told the first lie, and the citizens who heard of\nit, not knowing what a lie was, asked if it were white, black or blue.\nMen\u2019s lives grew shorter and shorter, and it was King Maha S\u00e2gara who,\nafter a brief reign of 252,000 years, made the dismal discovery of the\nfirst grey hair.[13]\n\nAdmitting the imperfection of the historical record as regards the\nlowest stages of culture, we must bear in mind that it tells both ways.\nNiebuhr, attacking the progressionists of the 18th century, remarks that\nthey have overlooked the fact \u2018that no single example can be brought\nforward of an actually savage people having independently become\ncivilized.\u2019[14] Whately appropriated this remark, which indeed forms the\nkernel of his well-known Lecture on the Origin of Civilisation: \u2018Facts\nare stubborn things,\u2019 he says, \u2018and that no authenticated instance can\nbe produced of savages that ever _did_ emerge, unaided, from that state\nis no _theory_, but a statement, hitherto never disproved, of a matter\nof _fact_.\u2019 He uses this as an argument in support of his general\nconclusion, that man could not have risen independently from a savage to\na civilized state, and that savages are degenerate descendants of\ncivilized men.[15] But he omits to ask the counter-question, whether we\nfind one recorded instance of a civilized people falling independently\ninto a savage state? Any such record, direct and well vouched, would be\nof high interest to ethnologists, though, of course, it would not\ncontradict the development-theory, for proving loss is not disproving\nprevious gain. But where is such a record to be found? The defect of\nhistorical evidence as to the transition between savagery and higher\nculture is a two-sided fact, only half taken into Archbishop Whately\u2019s\none-sided argument. Fortunately the defect is by no means fatal. Though\nhistory may not account directly for the existence and explain the\nposition of savages, it at least gives evidence which bears closely on\nthe matter. Moreover, we are in various ways enabled to study the lower\ncourse of culture on evidence which cannot have been tampered with to\nsupport a theory. Old traditional lore, however untrustworthy as direct\nrecord of events, contains most faithful incidental descriptions of\nmanners and customs; arch\u00e6ology displays old structures and buried\nrelics of the remote past; philology brings out the undesigned history\nin language, which generation after generation have handed down without\na thought of its having such significance; the ethnological survey of\nthe races of the world tells much; the ethnographical comparison of\ntheir condition tells more.\n\nArrest and decline in civilization are to be recognised as among the\nmore frequent and powerful operations of national life. That knowledge,\narts, and institutions should decay in certain districts, that peoples\nonce progressive should lag behind and be passed by advancing\nneighbours, that sometimes even societies of men should recede into\nrudeness and misery\u2014all these are phenomena with which modern history is\nfamiliar. In judging of the relation of the lower to the higher stages\nof civilization, it is essential to gain some idea how far it may have\nbeen affected by such degeneration. What kind of evidence can direct\nobservation and history give as to the degradation of men from a\ncivilized condition towards that of savagery? In our great cities, the\nso-called \u2018dangerous classes\u2019 are sunk in hideous misery and depravity.\nIf we have to strike a balance between the Papuans of New Caledonia and\nthe communities of European beggars and thieves, we may sadly\nacknowledge that we have in our midst something worse than savagery. But\nit is not savagery; it is broken-down civilization. Negatively, the\ninmates of a Whitechapel casual ward and of a Hottentot kraal agree in\ntheir want of the knowledge and virtue of the higher culture. But\npositively, their mental and moral characteristics are utterly\ndifferent. Thus, the savage life is essentially devoted to gaining\nsubsistence from nature, which is just what the proletarian life is not.\nTheir relations to civilized life\u2014the one of independence, the other of\ndependence\u2014are absolutely opposite. To my mind the popular phrases about\n\u2018city savages\u2019 and \u2018street Arabs\u2019 seem like comparing a ruined house to\na builder\u2019s yard. It is more to the purpose to notice how war and\nmisrule, famine and pestilence, have again and again devastated\ncountries, reduced their population to miserable remnants, and lowered\ntheir level of civilization, and how the isolated life of wild country\ndistricts seems sometimes tending towards savagery. So far as we know,\nhowever, none of these causes have ever really reproduced a savage\ncommunity. For an ancient account of degeneration under adverse\ncircumstances, Ovid\u2019s mention of the unhappy colony of Tomi on the Black\nSea is a case in point, though perhaps not to be taken too literally.\nAmong its mixed Greek and barbaric population, harassed and carried off\ninto slavery by the Sarmatian horsemen, much as the Persians till lately\nwere by the Turkomans, the poet describes the neglect of the gardener\u2019s\ncraft, the decay of textile arts, the barbaric clothing of hides.\n\n              \u2018Nec tamen h\u00e6c loca sunt ullo pretiosa metallo:\n                Hostis ab agricola vix sinit illa fodi.\n              Purpura s\u00e6pe tuos fulgens pr\u00e6texit amictus:\n                Sed non Sarmatico tingitur illa mari.\n              Vellera dura ferunt pecudes, et Palladis uti\n                Arte Tomitan\u00e6 non didicere nurus.\n              Femina pro lana Cerialia munera frangit,\n                Suppositoque gravem vertice portat aquam.\n              Non hic pampineis amicitur vitibus ulmus:\n                Nulla premunt ramos pondere poma suo.\n              Tristia deformes pariunt absinthia campi,\n                Terraque de fructu quam sit amara docet.\u2019[16]\n\nCases of exceptionally low civilization in Europe may perhaps be\nsometimes accounted for by degeneration of this kind. But they seem more\noften the relics of ancient unchanged barbarism. The evidence from wild\nparts of Ireland two or three centuries ago is interesting from this\npoint of view. Acts of Parliament were passed against the inveterate\nhabits of fastening ploughs to the horses\u2019 tails, and of burning oats\nfrom the straw to save the trouble of threshing. In the 18th century\nIreland could still be thus described in satire:\u2014\n\n                 \u2018The Western isle renowned for bogs,\n                 For tories and for great wolf-dogs,\n                 For drawing hobbies by the tails,\n                 And threshing corn with fiery flails.\u2019[17]\n\nFynes Moryson\u2019s description of the wild or \u2018meere\u2019 Irish about 1600, is\namazing. The very lords of them, he says, dwelt in poor clay houses, or\ncabins of boughs covered with turf. In many parts men as well as women\nhad in very winter time but a linen rag about the loins and a woollen\nmantle on their bodies, so that it would turn a man\u2019s stomach to see an\nold woman in the morning before breakfast. He notices their habit of\nburning oats from the straw, and making cakes thereof. They had no\ntables, but set their meat on a bundle of grass. They feasted on fallen\nhorses, and seethed pieces of beef and pork with the unwashed entrails\nof beasts in a hollow tree, lapped in a raw cow\u2019s hide, and so set over\nthe fire, and they drank milk warmed with a stone first cast into the\nfire.[18] Another district remarkable for a barbaric simplicity of life\nis the Hebrides. Till of late years, there were to be found there in\nactual use earthen vessels, unglazed and made by hand without the\npotter\u2019s wheel, which might pass in a museum as indifferent specimens of\nsavage manufacture. These \u2018craggans\u2019 are still made by an old woman at\nBarvas for sale as curiosities. Such a modern state of the potter\u2019s art\nin the Hebrides fits well with George Buchanan\u2019s statement in the 16th\ncentury that the islanders used to boil meat in the beast\u2019s own paunch\nor hide.[19] Early in the 18th century Martin mentions as prevalent\nthere the ancient way of dressing corn by burning it dexterously from\nthe ear, which he notices to be a very quick process, thence called\n\u2018graddan\u2019 (Gaelic, _grad_=quick).[20] Thus we see that the habit of\nburning out the grain, for which the \u2018meere Irish\u2019 were reproached, was\nreally the keeping up of an old Keltic art, not without its practical\nuse. So the appearance in modern Keltic districts of other widespread\narts of the lower culture\u2014hide-boiling, like that of the Scythians in\nHerodotus, and stone-boiling, like that of the Assinaboins of North\nAmerica\u2014seems to fit not so well with degradation from a high as with\nsurvival from a low civilization. The Irish and the Hebrideans had been\nfor ages under the influence of comparatively high civilization, which\nnevertheless may have left unaltered much of the older and ruder habit\nof the people.\n\nInstances of civilized men taking to a wild life in outlying districts\nof the world, and ceasing to obtain or want the appliances of\ncivilization, give more distinct evidence of degradation. In connexion\nwith this state of things takes place the nearest known approach to an\nindependent degeneration from a civilized to a savage state. This\nhappens in mixed races, whose standard of civilization may be more or\nless below that of the higher race. The mutineers of the Bounty, with\ntheir Polynesian wives, founded a small but not savage community on\nPitcairn\u2019s Island.[21] The mixed Portuguese and native races of the East\nIndies and Africa lead a life below the European standard, but not a\nsavage life.[22] The Gauchos of the South American Pampas, a mixed\nEuropean and Indian race of equestrian herdsmen, are described as\nsitting about on ox-skulls, making broth in horns with hot cinders\nheaped round, living on meat without vegetables, and altogether leading\na foul, brutal, comfortless, degenerate, but not savage life.[23] One\nstep beyond this brings us to the cases of individual civilized men\nbeing absorbed in savage tribes and adopting the savage life, on which\nthey exercise little influence for improvement; the children of these\nmen may come distinctly under the category of savages. These cases of\nmixed breeds, however, do not show a low culture actually produced as\nthe result of degeneration from a high one. Their theory is that, given\na higher and a lower civilization existing among two races, a mixed race\nbetween the two may take to the lower or an intermediate condition.\n\nDegeneration probably operates even more actively in the lower than in\nthe higher culture. Barbarous nations and savage hordes, with their less\nknowledge and scantier appliances, would seem peculiarly exposed to\ndegrading influences. In Africa, for instance, there seems to have been\nin modern centuries a falling off in culture, probably due in a\nconsiderable degree to foreign influence. Mr. J. L. Wilson, contrasting\nthe 16th and 17th century accounts of powerful negro kingdoms in West\nAfrica with the present small communities, with little or no tradition\nof their forefathers\u2019 more extended political organization, looks\nespecially to the slave-trade as the deteriorating cause.[24] In\nSouth-East Africa, also, a comparatively high barbaric culture, which we\nespecially associate with the old descriptions of the kingdom of\nMonomotapa, seems to have fallen away, not counting the remarkable ruins\nof buildings of hewn stone fitted without mortar which indicate the\nintrusion of more civilized foreigners into the gold region![25] In\nNorth America, Father Charlevoix remarks of the Iroquois of the last\ncentury, that in old times they used to build their cabins better than\nother nations, and better than they do themselves now; they carved rude\nfigures in relief on them; but since in various expeditions almost all\ntheir villages have been burnt, they have not taken the trouble to\nrestore them in their old condition.[26] The degradation of the Cheyenne\nIndians is matter of history. Persecuted by their enemies the Sioux, and\ndislodged at last even from their fortified village, the heart of the\ntribe was broken. Their numbers were thinned, they no longer dared to\nestablish themselves in a permanent abode, they gave up the cultivation\nof the soil, and became a tribe of wandering hunters, with horses for\ntheir only valuable possession, which every year they bartered for a\nsupply of corn, beans, pumpkins, and European merchandise, and then\nreturned into the heart of the prairies.[27] When in the Rocky\nMountains, Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle came upon an outlying fragment of\nthe Shushwap race, without horses or dogs, sheltering themselves under\nrude temporary slants of bark or matting, falling year by year into\nlower misery, and rapidly dying out; this is another example of the\ndegeneration which no doubt has lowered or destroyed many a savage\npeople.[28] There are tribes who are the very outcasts of savage life.\nThere is reason to look upon the miserable Digger Indians of North\nAmerica and the Bushmen of South Africa as the persecuted remnants of\ntribes who have seen happier days.[29] The traditions of the lower races\nof their ancestors\u2019 better life may sometimes be real recollections of a\nnot far distant past. The Algonquin Indians look back to old days as to\na golden age when life was better than now, when they had better laws\nand leaders, and manners less rude.[30] And indeed, knowing what we do\nof their history, we may admit that they have cause to remember in\nmisery happiness gone by. Well, too, might the rude Kamchadal declare\nthat the world is growing worse and worse, that men are becoming fewer\nand viler, and food scarcer, for the hunter, and the bear, and the\nreindeer are hurrying away from here to the happier life in the regions\nbelow.[31] It would be a valuable contribution to the study of\ncivilization to have the action of decline and fall investigated on a\nwider and more exact basis of evidence than has yet been attempted. The\ncases here stated are probably but part of a long series which might be\nbrought forward to prove degeneration in culture to have been, by no\nmeans indeed the primary cause of the existence of barbarism and\nsavagery in the world, but a secondary action largely and deeply\naffecting the general development of civilization. It may perhaps give\nno unfair idea to compare degeneration of culture, both in its kind of\noperation and in its immense extent, to denudation in the geological\nhistory of the earth.\n\nIn judging of the relations between savage and civilized life, something\nmay be learnt by glancing over the divisions of the human race. For this\nend the classification by families of languages may be conveniently\nused, if checked by the evidence of bodily characteristics. No doubt\nspeech by itself is an insufficient guide in tracing national descent,\nas witness the extreme cases of Jews in England, and three-parts negro\nraces in the West Indies, nevertheless speaking English as their\nmother-tongue. Still, under ordinary circumstances, connexion of speech\ndoes indicate more or less connexion of ancestral race. As a guide in\ntracing the history of civilization, language gives still better\nevidence, for common language to a great extent involves common culture.\nThe race dominant enough to maintain or impose its language, usually\nmore or less maintains or imposes its civilization also. Thus the common\ndescent of the languages of Hindus, Greeks, and Teutons is no doubt due\nin great measure to common ancestry, but is still more closely bound up\nwith a common social and intellectual history, with what Professor Max\nM\u00fcller well calls their \u2018spiritual relationship.\u2019 The wonderful\npermanence of language often enables us to detect among remotely ancient\nand distant tribes the traces of connected civilization. How, on such\ngrounds, do savage and civilized tribes appear to stand related, within\nthe various groups of mankind connected historically by the possession\nof kindred languages?\n\nThe Semitic family, which represents one of the oldest known\ncivilizations of the world, includes Arabs, Jews, Ph\u0153nicians, Syrians,\n&c., and has an earlier as well as a later connexion in North Africa.\nThis family takes in some rude tribes, but none which would be classed\nas savages. The Aryan family has existed in Asia and Europe certainly\nfor many thousand years, and there are well-known and well-marked traces\nof its early barbaric condition, which has perhaps survived with least\nchange among secluded tribes in the valleys of the Hindu Kush and\nHimalaya. There seems, again, no known case of any full Aryan tribe\nhaving become savage. The Gypsies and other outcasts are, no doubt,\npartly Aryan in blood, but their degraded condition is not savagery. In\nIndia there are tribes Aryan by language, but whose physique is rather\nof indigenous type, and whose ancestry is mainly from indigenous stocks\nwith more or less mixture of the dominant Hindu. Some tribes coming\nunder this category, as among the Bhils and Kulis of the Bombay\nPresidency, speak dialects which are Hindi in vocabulary at least,\nwhether or not in grammatical structure, and yet the people themselves\nare lower in culture than some Hinduized nations who have retained their\noriginal Dravidian speech, the Tamils for instance. But these all appear\nto stand at higher stages of civilization than any wild forest tribes of\nthe peninsula who can be reckoned as nearly savages; all such are\nnon-Aryan both in blood and speech.[32] In Ceylon, however, we have the\nremarkable phenomenon of men leading a savage life while speaking an\nAryan dialect. This is the wild part of the race of Veddas or \u2018hunters,\u2019\nof whom a remnant still inhabit the forest land. These people are\ndark-skinned and flat-nosed, slight of frame, and very small of skull,\nand five feet is an average man\u2019s height. They are a shy, harmless,\nsimple people, living principally by hunting; they lime birds, take fish\nby poisoning the water, and are skilful in getting wild honey; they have\nbows with iron-pointed arrows, which, with their hunting-dogs, are their\nmost valuable possessions. They dwell in caves or bark huts, and their\nvery word for a house is Singhalese for a hollow tree (_rukula_); a\npatch of bark was formerly their dress, but now a bit of linen hangs to\ntheir waist-cords; their planting of patches of ground is said to be\nrecent. They count on their fingers, and produce fire with the simplest\nkind of fire-drill twirled by hand. They are most truthful and honest.\nTheir monogamy and conjugal fidelity contrast strongly with the opposite\nhabits of the more civilized Singhalese. A remarkable Vedda marriage\ncustom sanctioned a man\u2019s taking his younger (not elder) sister as his\nwife; sister-marriage existing among the Singhalese, but being confined\nto the royal family. Mistaken statements have been made as to the Veddas\nhaving no religion, no personal names, no language. Their religion, in\nfact, corresponds with the animism of the ruder tribes of India; some of\ntheir names are remarkable as being Hindu, but not in use among the\nmodern Singhalese; their language is a Singhalese dialect. There is no\ndoubt attaching to the usual opinion that the Veddas are in the main\ndescended from the \u2018yakkos\u2019 or demons; i.e. from the indigenous tribes\nof the island. Legend and language concur to make probable an admixture\nof Aryan blood accompanying the adoption of Aryan speech, but the\nevidence of bodily characteristics shows the Vedda race to be\nprincipally of indigenous pre-Aryan type.[33]\n\nThe Tatar family of Northern Asia and Europe (Turanian, if the word be\nused in a restricted sense) displays evidence of quite a different kind.\nThis wide-lying group of tribes and nations has members nearly or quite\ntouching the savage level in ancient and even modern times, such as\nOstyaks, Tunguz, Samoyeds, Lapps, while more or less high ranges of\nculture are represented by Mongols, Turks, and Hungarians. Here,\nhowever, it is unquestionable that the rude tribes represent the earlier\ncondition of the Tatar race at large, from which its more mixed and\ncivilized peoples, mostly by adopting the foreign culture of Buddhist,\nMoslem, and Christian nations, and partly by internal development, are\nwell known to have risen. The ethnology of South-Eastern Asia is\nsomewhat obscure; but if we may classify under one heading the native\nraces of Siam, Burma, &c., the wilder tribes may be considered as\nrepresenting earlier conditions, for the higher culture of this region\nis obviously foreign, especially of Buddhist origin. The Malay race is\nalso remarkable for the range of civilization represented by tribes\nclassed as belonging to it. If the wild tribes of the Malayan peninsula\nand Borneo be compared with the semi-civilized nations of Java and\nSumatra, it appears that part of the race survives to represent an early\nsavage state, while part is found in possession of a civilization which\nthe first glance shows to have been mostly borrowed from Hindu and\nMoslem sources. Some forest tribes of the peninsula seem to be\nrepresentatives of the Malay race at its lowest level of culture, how\nfar original and how far degraded it is not easy to say. Among them the\nvery rude Orang Sabimba, who have no agriculture and no boats, give a\nremarkable account of themselves, that they are descendants of\nshipwrecked Malays from the Bugis country, but were so harassed by\npirates that they gave up civilization and cultivation, and vowed not to\neat fowls, which betrayed them by their crowing. So they plant nothing,\nbut eat wild fruit and vegetables, and all animals but the fowl. This,\nif at all founded on fact, is an interesting case of degeneration. But\nsavages usually invent myths to account for peculiar habits, as where,\nin the same district, the Biduanda Kallang account for their not\ncultivating the ground by the story that their ancestors vowed not to\nmake plantations. Another rude people of the Malay peninsula are the\nJakuns, a simple, kindly race, among whom some trace their pedigree to a\npair of white monkeys, while others declare that they are descendants of\nwhite men; and indeed there is some ground for supposing these latter to\nbe really of mixed race, for they use a few Portuguese words, and a\nreport exists of some refugees having settled up the country.[34] The\nMelanesians, Papuans, and Australians represent grades of savagery\nspread each over its own vast area in a comparatively homogeneous way.\nLastly, the relations of savagery to higher conditions are remarkable,\nbut obscure, on the American continents. There are several great\nlinguistic families whose members were discovered in a savage state\nthroughout; such are the Esquimaux, Algonquin, and Guarani groups. On\nthe other hand there were three apparently unconnected districts of\nsemi-civilization reaching a high barbaric level, viz., in Mexico and\nCentral America, Bogota, and Peru. Between these higher and lower\nconditions were races at the level of the Natchez of Louisiana and the\nApalaches of Florida. Linguistic connexion is not unknown between the\nmore advanced peoples and the lower races around them.[35] But definite\nevidence showing the higher culture to have arisen from the lower, or\nthe lower to have fallen from the higher, is scarcely forthcoming. Both\noperations may in degree have happened.\n\nIt is apparent, from such general inspection of this ethnological\nproblem, that it would repay a far closer study than it has as yet\nreceived. As the evidence stands at present, it appears that when in any\nrace some branches much excel the rest in culture, this more often\nhappens by elevation than by subsidence. But this elevation is much more\napt to be produced by foreign than by native action. Civilization is a\nplant much oftener propagated than developed. As regards the lower\nraces, this accords with the results of European intercourse with savage\ntribes during the last three or four centuries; so far as these tribes\nhave survived the process, they have assimilated more or less of\nEuropean Culture and risen towards the European level, as in Polynesia,\nSouth Africa, South America. Another important point becomes manifest\nfrom this ethnological survey. The fact, that during so many thousand\nyears of known existence, neither the Aryan nor the Semitic race appears\nto have thrown off any direct savage offshoot, tells, with some force,\nagainst the probability of degradation to the savage level ever\nhappening from high-level civilization.\n\nWith regard to the opinions of older writers on early civilization,\nwhether progressionists or degenerationists, it must be borne in mind\nthat the evidence at their disposal fell far short of even the miserably\nimperfect data now accessible. Criticizing an 18th century ethnologist\nis like criticizing an 18th century geologist. The older writer may have\nbeen far abler than his modern critic, but he had not the same\nmaterials. Especially he wanted the guidance of Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology,\na department of research only established on a scientific footing within\nthe last few years. It is essential to gain a clear view of the bearing\nof this newer knowledge on the old problem.\n\nChronology, though regarding as more or less fictitious the immense\ndynastic schemes of the Egyptians, Hindus, and Chinese, passing as they\ndo into mere ciphering-book sums with years for units, nevertheless\nadmits that existing monuments carry back the traces of comparatively\nhigh civilization to a distance of above five thousand years. By piecing\ntogether Eastern and Western documentary evidence it seems that the\ngreat religious divisions of the Aryan race, to which modern Brahmanism,\nZarathustrism, and Buddhism are due, belong to a period of remotely\nancient history. Even if we cannot hold, with Professor Max M\u00fcller, in\nthe preface to his translation of the \u2018Rig Veda,\u2019 that this collection\nof Aryan hymns \u2018will take and maintain for ever its position as the most\nancient of books in the library of mankind,\u2019 and if we do not admit the\nstringency of his reckonings of its date in centuries B.C., yet we must\ngrant that he shows cause to refer its composition to a very ancient\nperiod, where it then proves that a comparatively high barbaric culture\nalready existed. The linguistic argument for the remotely ancient common\norigin of the Indo-European nations, in a degree as to their bodily\ndescent, and in a greater degree as to their civilization, tends toward\nthe same result. So it is again with Egypt. The calculations of Egyptian\ndynasties in thousands of years, however disputable in detail, are based\non facts which at any rate authorize the reception of a long chronology.\nTo go no further than the identification of two or three Egyptian names\nmentioned in Biblical and Classical history, we gain a strong impression\nof remote antiquity. Such are the names of Shishank; of the Psammitichos\nline, whose obelisks are to be seen in Rome; of Tirhakah, King of\nEthiopia, whose nurse\u2019s coffin is in the Florence Museum; of the city of\nRameses, plainly connected with that great Ramesside line which\nEgyptologists call the 19th Dynasty. Here, before classic culture had\narisen, the culture of Egypt culminated, and behind this time lies the\nsomewhat less advanced age of the Pyramid kings, and behind this again\nthe indefinite lapse of ages which such a civilization required for its\nproduction. Again, though no part of the Old Testament can\nsatisfactorily prove for itself an antiquity of composition approaching\nthat of the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions, yet all critics\nmust admit that the older of the historical books give on the one hand\ncontemporary documents showing considerable culture in the Semitic world\nat a date which in comparison with classic history is ancient; while on\nthe other hand they afford evidence by way of chronicle, carrying back\nages farther the record of a somewhat advanced barbaric civilization.\nNow if the development-theory is to account for phenomena such as these,\nits chronological demand must be no small one, and the more so when it\nis admitted that in the lower ranges of culture progress would be\nextremely slow in comparison with that which experience shows among\nnations already far advanced. On these conditions of the first\nappearance of the middle civilization being thrown back to distant\nantiquity, and of slow development being required to perform its heavy\ntask in ages still more remote, Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology cheerfully takes\nup the problem. And, indeed, far from being dismayed by the vastness of\nthe period required on the narrowest computation, the prehistoric\narch\u00e6ologist shows even too much disposition to revel in calculations of\nthousands of years, as a financier does in reckonings of thousands of\npounds, in a liberal and maybe somewhat reckless way.\n\nPrehistoric Arch\u00e6ology is fully alive to facts which may bear on\ndegeneration in culture. Such are the colossal human figures of hewn\nstone in Easter Island, which may possibly have been shaped by the\nancestors of the existing islanders, whose present resources, however,\nare quite unequal to the execution of such gigantic works.[36] A much\nmore important case is that of the former inhabitants of the Mississippi\nValley. In districts where the native tribes known in modern times rank\nas savages, there formerly dwelt a race whom ethnologists call the\nMound-Builders, from the amazing extent of their mounds and enclosures,\nof which there is a single group occupying an area of four square miles.\nThe regularity of the squares and circles and the repetition of\nenclosures similar in dimensions, raise interesting questions as to the\nmethods by which these were planned out. To have constructed such works\nthe Mound-Builders must have been a numerous population, mainly\nsubsisting by agriculture, and indeed vestiges of their ancient tillage\nare still to be found. They did not however in industrial arts approach\nthe level of Mexico. For instance, their use of native copper, hammered\ninto shape for cutting instruments, is similar to that of some of the\nsavage tribes farther north. On the whole, judging by their earthworks,\nfields, pottery, stone implements and other remains, they seem to have\nbelonged to those high savage or barbaric tribes of the Southern States,\nof whom the Creeks and Cherokees, as described by Bartram, may be taken\nas typical.[37] If any of the wild roving hunting tribes now found\nliving near the huge earthworks of the Mound-Builders are the\ndescendants of this somewhat advanced race, then a very considerable\ndegradation has taken place. The question is an open one. The\nexplanation of the traces of tillage may perhaps in this case be like\nthat of the remains of old cultivation-terraces in Borneo, the work of\nChinese colonists whose descendants have mostly been merged in the mass\nof the population and follow the native habits.[38] On the other hand,\nthe evidence of locality may be misleading as to race. A traveller in\nGreenland, coming on the ruined stone buildings at Kakortok, would not\nargue justly that the Esquimaux are degenerate descendants of ancestors\ncapable of such architecture, for in fact these are the remains of a\nchurch and baptistery built by the ancient Scandinavian settlers.[39] On\nthe whole it is remarkable how little of colourable evidence of\ndegeneration has been disclosed by arch\u00e6ology. Its negative evidence\ntells strongly the other way. As an instance may be quoted Sir John\nLubbock\u2019s argument against the idea that tribes now ignorant of\nmetallurgy and pottery formerly possessed but have since lost these\narts. \u2018We may also assert, on a general proposition, that no weapons or\ninstruments of metal have ever been found in any country inhabited by\nsavages wholly ignorant of metallurgy. A still stronger case is afforded\nby pottery. Pottery is not easily destroyed; when known at all it is\nalways abundant, and it possesses two qualities, namely, those of being\neasy to break and yet difficult to destroy, which render it very\nvaluable in an arch\u00e6ological point of view. Moreover, it is in most\ncases associated with burials. It is, therefore, a very significant\nfact, that no fragment of pottery has ever been found in Australia, New\nZealand, or in the Polynesian Islands.\u2019[40] How different a state of\nthings the popular degeneration-theory would lead us to expect is\npointedly suggested by Sir Charles Lyell\u2019s sarcastic sentences in his\n\u2018Antiquity of Man.\u2019 Had the original stock of mankind, he argues, been\nreally endowed with superior intellectual powers and inspired knowledge,\nwhile possessing the same improvable nature as their posterity, how\nextreme a point of advancement would they have reached. \u2018Instead of the\nrudest pottery or flint tools, so irregular in form as to cause the\nunpractised eye to doubt whether they afford unmistakable evidence of\ndesign, we should now be finding sculptured forms surpassing in beauty\nthe masterpieces of Phidias or Praxiteles; lines of buried railways or\nelectric telegraphs from which the best engineers of our day might gain\ninvaluable hints; astronomical instruments and microscopes of more\nadvanced construction than any known in Europe, and other indications of\nperfection in the arts and sciences, such as the nineteenth century has\nnot yet witnessed. Still farther would the triumphs of inventive genius\nbe found to have been carried, when the later deposits, now assigned to\nthe ages of bronze and iron, were formed. Vainly should we be straining\nour imaginations to guess the possible uses and meaning of such\nrelics\u2014machines, perhaps, for navigating the air or exploring the depths\nof the ocean, or for calculating arithmetical problems beyond the wants\nor even the conceptions of living mathematicians.\u2019[41]\n\nThe master-key to the investigation of man\u2019s prim\u00e6val condition is held\nby Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology. This key is the evidence of the Stone Age,\nproving that men of remotely ancient ages were in the savage state. Ever\nsince the long-delayed recognition of M. Boucher de Perthes\u2019 discoveries\n(1841 and onward) of the flint implements in the Drift gravels of the\nSomme Valley, evidence has been accumulating over a wide European area\nto show that the ruder Stone Age, represented by implements of the\nPal\u00e6olithic or Drift type, prevailed among savage tribes of the\nQuaternary period, the contemporaries of the mammoth and the woolly\nrhinoceros, in ages for which Geology asserts an antiquity far more\nremote than History can avail to substantiate for the human race. Mr.\nJohn Frere had already written in 1797 respecting such flint instruments\ndiscovered at Hoxne in Suffolk. \u2018The situation in which these weapons\nwere found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed,\neven beyond that of the present world.\u2019[42] The vast lapse of time\nthrough which the history of London has represented the history of human\ncivilization, is to my mind one of the most suggestive facts disclosed\nby arch\u00e6ology. There the antiquary, excavating but a few yards deep, may\ndescend from the d\u00e9bris representing our modern life, to relics of the\nart and science of the Middle Ages, to signs of Norman, Saxon,\nRomano-British times, to traces of the higher Stone Age. And on his way\nfrom Temple Bar to the Great Northern Station he passes near the spot\n(\u2018opposite to black Mary\u2019s near Grayes inn lane\u2019) where a Drift\nimplement of black flint was found with the skeleton of an elephant by\nMr. Conyers, about a century and a half ago, the relics side by side of\nthe London mammoth and the London savage.[43] In the gravel-beds of\nEurope, the laterite of India, and other more superficial localities,\nwhere relics of the Pal\u00e6olithic Age are found, what principally\ntestifies to man\u2019s condition is the extreme rudeness of his stone\nimplements, and the absence of even edge-grinding. The natural inference\nthat this indicates a low savage state is confirmed in the caves of\nCentral France. There a race of men, who have left indeed really\nartistic portraits of themselves and the reindeer and mammoths they\nlived among, seem, as may be judged from the remains of their weapons,\nimplements, &c., to have led a life somewhat of Esquimaux type, but\nlower by the want of domesticated animals. The districts where\nimplements of the rude primitive Drift type are found are limited in\nextent. It is to ages later in time and more advanced in development,\nthat the Neolithic or Polished Stone Period belonged, when the\nmanufacture of stone instruments was much improved, and grinding and\npolishing were generally introduced. During the long period of\nprevalence of this state of things, Man appears to have spread almost\nover the whole habitable earth. The examination of district after\ndistrict of the world has now all but established a universal rule that\nthe Stone Age (bone or shell being the occasional substitutes for stone)\nunderlies the Metal Age everywhere. Even the districts famed in history\nas seats of ancient civilization show, like other regions, their traces\nof a yet more archaic Stone Age. Asia Minor, Egypt, Palestine, India,\nChina, furnish evidence from actual specimens, historical mentions, and\nsurvivals, which demonstrate the former prevalence of conditions of\nsociety which have their analogues among modern savage tribes.[44] The\nDuke of Argyll, in his \u2018Primeval Man,\u2019 while admitting the Drift\nimplements as having been the ice hatchets and rude knives of low tribes\nof men inhabiting Europe toward the end of the Glacial Period, concludes\nthence \u2018that it would be about as safe to argue from these implements as\nto the condition of Man at that time in the countries of his Primeval\nHome, as it would be in our own day to argue from the habits and arts of\nthe Eskimo as to the state of civilization in London or in Paris.\u2019[45]\nThe progress of Arch\u00e6ology for years past, however, has been continually\ncutting away the ground on which such an argument as this can stand,\ntill now it is all but utterly driven off the field. Where now is the\ndistrict of the earth that can be pointed to as the \u2018Primeval Home\u2019 of\nMan, and that does not show by rude stone implements buried in its soil\nthe savage condition of its former inhabitants? There is scarcely a\nknown province of the world of which we cannot say certainly, savages\nonce dwelt here, and if in such a case an ethnologist asserts that these\nsavages were the descendants or successors of a civilized nation, the\nburden of proof lies on him. Again, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age\nbelong in great measure to history, but their relation to the Stone Age\nproves the soundness of the judgement of Lucretius, when, attaching\nexperience of the present to memory and inference from the past, he\npropounded what is now a tenet of arch\u00e6ology, the succession of the\nStone, Bronze, and Iron Ages:\n\n             \u2018Arma antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt,\n             Et lapides et item silvarum fragmina rami\n\n             Posterius ferri vis est \u00e6risque reperta,\n             Et prior \u00e6ris erat quam ferri cognitus usus.\u2019[46]\n\nThroughout the various topics of Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology, the force and\nconvergence of its testimony upon the development of culture are\noverpowering. The relics discovered in gravel-beds, caves, shell-mounds,\nterramares, lake-dwellings, earthworks, the results of an exploration of\nthe superficial soil in many countries, the comparison of geological\nevidence, of historical documents, of modern savage life, corroborate\nand explain one another. The megalithic structures, menhirs, cromlechs,\ndolmens, and the like, only known to England, France, Algeria, as the\nwork of races of the mysterious past, have been kept up as matters of\nmodern construction and recognized purpose among the ruder indigenous\ntribes of India. The series of ancient lake-settlements which must\nrepresent so many centuries of successive population fringing the shores\nof the Swiss lakes, have their surviving representatives among the rude\ntribes of the East Indies, Africa, and South America. Outlying savages\nare still heaping up shell-mounds like those of far-past Scandinavian\nantiquity. The burial mounds still to be seen in civilized countries\nhave served at once as museums of early culture and as proofs of its\nsavage or barbaric type. It is enough, without entering farther here\ninto subjects fully discussed in modern special works, to claim the\ngeneral support given to the development-theory of culture by\nPrehistoric Arch\u00e6ology. It was with a true appreciation of the bearings\nof this science that one of its founders, the venerable Professor Sven\nNilsson, declared in 1843 in the Introduction to his \u2018Primitive\nInhabitants of Scandinavia,\u2019 that we are \u2018unable properly to understand\nthe significance of the antiquities of any individual country without at\nthe same time clearly realizing the idea that they are the fragments of\na progressive series of civilization, and that the human race has always\nbeen, and still is, steadily advancing in civilization.\u2019[47]\n\nEnquiry into the origin and early development of the material arts, as\njudged of by comparing the various stages at which they are found\nexisting, leads to a corresponding result. Not to take this argument up\nin its full range, a few typical details may serve to show its general\ncharacter. Amongst the various stages of the arts, it is only a minority\nwhich show of themselves by mere inspection whether they are in the line\nof progress or of decline. Most such facts may be compared to an\nIndian\u2019s canoe, stem and stern alike, so that one cannot tell by looking\nat it which way it is set to go. But there are some which, like our own\nboats, distinctly point in the direction of their actual course. Such\nfacts are pointers in the study of civilization, and in every branch of\nthe enquiry should be sought out. A good example of these pointer-facts\nis recorded by Mr. Wallace. In Celebes, where the bamboo houses are apt\nto lean with the prevalent west wind, the natives have found out that if\nthey fix some crooked timbers in the sides of the house, it will not\nfall. They choose such accordingly, the crookedest they can find, but\nthey do not know the rationale of the contrivance, and have not hit on\nthe idea that straight poles fixed slanting would have the same effect\nin making the structure rigid.[48] In fact, they have gone half-way\ntoward inventing what builders call a \u2018strut.\u2019 but have stopped short.\nNow the mere sight of such a house would show that the plan is not a\nremnant of higher architecture, but a half-made invention. This is a\nfact in the line of progress, but not of decline. I have mentioned\nelsewhere a number of similar cases; thus the adaptation of a cord to\nthe fire-drill is obviously an improvement on the simpler instrument\ntwirled by hand, and the use of the spindle for making thread is an\nimprovement on the clumsier art of hand-twisting;[49] but to reverse\nthis position, and suppose the hand-drill to have come into use by\nleaving off the use of the cord of the cord-drill, or that people who\nknew the use of the spindle left it off and painfully twisted their\nthread by hand, is absurd. Again, the appearance of an art in a\nparticular locality where it is hard to account for it as borrowed from\nelsewhere, and especially if it concerns some special native product, is\nevidence of its being a native invention. Thus, what people can claim\nthe invention of the hammock, or the still more admirable discovery of\nthe extraction of the wholesome cassava from the poisonous manioc, but\nthe natives of the South American and West Indian districts to which\nthese things belong? As the isolated possession of an art goes to prove\nits invention where it is found, so the absence of an art goes to prove\nthat it was never present. The onus probandi is on the other side; if\nanyone thinks that the East African\u2019s ancestors had the lamp and the\npotter\u2019s wheel, and that the North American Indians once possessed the\nart of making beer from their maize like the Mexicans, but that these\narts have been lost, at any rate let him show cause for such an opinion.\nI need not, perhaps, go so far as a facetious ethnological friend of\nmine, who argues that the existence of savage tribes who do not kiss\ntheir women is a proof of prim\u00e6val barbarism, for, he says, if they had\never known the practice they could not possibly have forgotten it.\nLastly and principally, as experience shows us that arts of civilized\nlife are developed through successive stages of improvement, we may\nassume that the early development of even savage arts came to pass in a\nsimilar way, and thus, finding various stages of an art among the lower\nraces, we may arrange these stages in a series probably representing\ntheir actual sequence in history. If any art can be traced back among\nsavage tribes to a rudimentary state in which its invention does not\nseem beyond their intellectual condition, and especially if it may be\nproduced by imitating nature or following nature\u2019s direct suggestion,\nthere is fair reason to suppose the very origin of the art to have been\nreached.\n\nProfessor Nilsson, looking at the remarkable similarity of the hunting\nand fishing instruments of the lower races of mankind, considers them to\nhave been contrived instinctively by a sort of natural necessity. As an\nexample he takes the bow and arrow.[50] The instance seems an\nunfortunate one, in the face of the fact that the supposed\nbow-and-arrow-making instinct fails among the natives of Tasmania, to\nwhom it would have been very useful, nor have the Australians any bow of\ntheir own invention. Even within the Papuan region, the bow so prevalent\nin New Guinea is absent, or almost so, from New Caledonia. It seems to\nme that Dr. Klemm, in his dissertations on Implements and Weapons, and\nColonel Lane Fox, in his lectures on Primitive Warfare, take a more\ninstructive line in tracing the early development of arts, not to a\nblind instinct, but to a selection, imitation, and gradual adaptation\nand improvement of objects and operations which Nature, the instructor\nof prim\u00e6val man, sets before him. Thus Klemm traces the stages by which\nprogress appears to have been made from the rough stick to the finished\nspear or club, from the natural sharp-edged or rounded stone to the\nartistically fashioned celt, spear-head, or hammer.[51] Lane Fox traces\nconnexion through the various types of weapons, pointing out how a form\nonce arrived at is repeated in various sizes, like the spear-head and\narrow-point; how in rude conditions of the arts the same instrument\nserves different purposes, as where the Fuegians use their arrow-heads\nalso for knives, and Kafirs carve with their assagais, till separate\nforms are adopted for special purposes; and how in the history of the\nstriking, cutting, and piercing instruments used by mankind, a\ncontinuity may be traced, which indicates a gradual progressive\ndevelopment from the rudest beginnings to the most advanced improvements\nof modern skill. To show how far the early development of warlike arts\nmay have been due to man\u2019s imitative faculty, he points out the\nanalogies in methods of warfare among animals and men, classifying as\ndefensive appliances hides, solid plates, jointed plates, scales; as\noffensive weapons, the piercing, striking, serrated, poisoned kinds,\n&c.; and under the head of stratagems, flight, concealment, leaders,\noutposts, war-cries, and so forth.[52]\n\nThe manufacture of stone implements is now almost perfectly understood\nby arch\u00e6ologists. The processes used by modern savages have been\nobserved and imitated. Sir John Evans, for instance, by blows with a\npebble, pressure with a piece of stag\u2019s horn, sawing with a flint-flake,\nboring with a stick and sand, and grinding on a stone surface, succeeds\nin reproducing all but the finest kinds of stone implements.[53] On\nthorough knowledge we are now able to refer in great measure the\nremarkable similarities of the stone scrapers, flake-knives, hatchets,\nspear- and arrow-heads, &c., as found in distant times and regions, to\nthe similarity of natural models, of materials, and of requirements\nwhich belong to savage life. The history of the Stone Age is clearly\nseen to be one of development. Beginning with the natural sharp stone,\nthe transition to the rudest artificially shaped stone implement is\nimperceptibly gradual, and onward from this rude stage much independent\nprogress in different directions is to be traced, till the manufacture\nat last arrives at admirable artistic perfection, by the time that the\nintroduction of metal is superseding it. So with other implements and\nfabrics, of which the stages are known through their whole course of\ndevelopment from the merest nature to the fullest art. The club is\ntraced from the rudest natural bludgeon up to the weapon of finished\nshape and carving. Pebbles held in the hand to hammer with, and\ncutting-instruments of stone shaped or left smooth at one end to be held\nin the hand, may be seen in museums, hinting that the important art of\nfixing instruments in handles was the result of invention, not of\ninstinct. The stone hatchet, used as a weapon, passes into the\nbattle-axe. The spear, a pointed stick or pole, has its point hardened\nin the fire, and a further improvement is to fix on a sharp point of\nhorn, bone, or chipped stone. Stones are flung by hand, and then by the\nsling, a contrivance widely but not universally known among savage\ntribes. From first to last in the history of war the spear or lance is\ngrasped as a thrusting weapon. Its use as a missile no doubt began as\nearly, but it has hardly survived so far in civilization. Thus used, it\nis most often thrown by the unaided arm, but a sling for the purpose is\nknown to various savage tribes. The short cord with an eye used in the\nNew Hebrides, and called a \u2018becket\u2019 by Captain Cook, and a whip-like\ninstrument noticed in New Zealand, are used for spear-throwing. But the\nmore usual instrument is a wooden handle, a foot or two long. This\nspear-thrower is known across the high northern districts of North\nAmerica, among some tribes of South America, and among the Australians.\nThese latter, it has been asserted, could not have invented it in their\npresent state of barbarism. But the remarkable feature of the matter is\nthat the spear-thrower belongs especially to savagery, and not to\ncivilization. Among the higher nations the nearest approach to it seems\nto have been the classic amentum, a thong attached to the middle of the\nshaft of the javelin to throw it with. The highest people known to have\nused the spear-thrower proper were the nations of Mexico and Central\nAmerica. Its existence among them is vouched for by representations in\nthe mythological pictures, by its Mexican name \u2018atlatl,\u2019 and by a\nbeautifully artistic specimen of the thing itself in the Christy Museum;\nbut we do not hear of it as in practical use after the Spanish Conquest.\nIn fact the history of the instrument seems in absolute opposition to\nthe degradation-theory, representing as it does an invention belonging\nto the lower civilization, and scarcely able to survive beyond. Nearly\nthe same may be said of the blow-tube, which as a serious weapon\nscarcely ranges above rude tribes of the East Indies and South America,\nthough kept up in sport at higher levels. The Australian boomerang has\nbeen claimed as derived from some hypothetical high culture, whereas the\ntransition-stages through which it is connected with the club are to be\nobserved in its own country, while no civilized race possesses the\nweapon.\n\nThe use of spring traps of boughs, of switches to fillip small missiles\nwith, and of the remarkable darts of the Pelew Islands, bent and made to\nfly by their own spring, indicate inventions which may have led to that\nof the bow, while the arrow is a miniature form of the javelin. The\npractice of poisoning arrows, after the manner of stings and serpents\u2019\nfangs, is no civilized device, but a characteristic of lower life, which\nis generally discarded even at the barbaric stage. The art of\nnarcotizing fish, remembered but not approved by high civilization,\nbelongs to many savage tribes, who might easily discover it in any\nforest pool where a suitable plant had fallen in. The art of setting\nfences to catch fish at the ebb of the tide, so common among the lower\nraces, is a simple device for assisting nature quite likely to occur to\nthe savage, in whom sharp hunger is no mean ally of dull wit. Thus it is\nwith other arts. Fire-making, cooking, pottery, the textile arts, are to\nbe traced along lines of gradual improvement.[54] Music begins with the\nrattle and the drum, which in one way or another hold their places from\nend to end of civilization, while pipes and stringed instruments\nrepresent an advanced musical art which is still developing. So with\narchitecture and agriculture. Complex, elaborate, and highly-reasoned as\nare the upper stages of these arts, it is to be remembered that their\nlower stages begin with mere direct imitation of nature, copying the\nshelters which nature provides, and the propagation of plants which\nnature performs. Without enumerating to the same purpose the remaining\nindustries of savage life, it may be said generally that their facts\nresist rather than require a theory of degradation from higher culture.\nThey agree with, and often necessitate, the same view of development\nwhich we know by experience to account for the origin and progress of\nthe arts among ourselves.\n\nIn the various branches of the problem which will henceforward occupy\nour attention, that of determining the relation of the mental condition\nof savages to that of civilized men, it is an excellent guide and\nsafeguard to keep before our minds the theory of development in the\nmaterial arts. Throughout all the manifestations of the human intellect,\nfacts will be found to fall into their places on the same general lines\nof evolution. The notion of the intellectual state of savages as\nresulting from decay of previous high knowledge, seems to have as little\nevidence in its favour as that stone celts are the degenerate successors\nof Sheffield axes, or earthen grave-mounds degraded copies of Egyptian\npyramids. The study of savage and civilized life alike avail us to trace\nin the early history of the human intellect, not gifts of transcendental\nwisdom, but rude shrewd sense taking up the facts of common life and\nshaping from them schemes of primitive philosophy. It will be seen again\nand again, by examining such topics as language, mythology, custom,\nreligion, that savage opinion is in a more or less rudimentary state,\nwhile the civilized mind still bears vestiges, neither few nor slight,\nof a past condition from which savages represent the least, and\ncivilized men the greatest advance. Throughout the whole vast range of\nthe history of human thought and habit, while civilization has to\ncontend not only with survival from lower levels, but also with\ndegeneration within its own borders, it yet proves capable of overcoming\nboth and taking its own course. History within its proper field, and\nethnography over a wider range, combine to show that the institutions\nwhich can best hold their own in the world gradually supersede the less\nfit ones, and that this incessant conflict determines the general\nresultant course of culture. I will venture to set forth in mythic\nfashion how progress, aberration, and retrogression in the general\ncourse of culture contrast themselves in my own mind. We may fancy\nourselves looking on Civilization, as in personal figure she traverses\nthe world; we see her lingering or resting by the way, and often\ndeviating into paths that bring her toiling back to where she had passed\nby long ago; but, direct or devious, her path lies forward, and if now\nand then she tries a few backward steps, her walk soon falls into a\nhelpless stumbling. It is not according to her nature, her feet were not\nmade to plant uncertain steps behind her, for both in her forward view\nand in her onward gait she is of truly human type.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  G. W. Earl, \u2018Papuans,\u2019 p. 79; A. R. Wallace, \u2018Eastern Archipelago.\u2019\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  Rochefort, \u2018Iles Antilles,\u2019 pp. 400-480.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  Gibbon, \u2018Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,\u2019 ch. xxxviii.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  De Maistre, \u2018Soir\u00e9es de St. P\u00e9tersbourg,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 150.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  De Brosses, \u2018Dieux F\u00e9tiches,\u2019 p. 15; \u2018Formation des Langues,\u2019 vol. i.\n  p. 49; vol. ii. p. 32.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  Goguet, \u2018Origine des Lois, des Arts,\u2019 &c., vol. i. p. 88.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  Whately, \u2018Essay on the Origin of Civilisation,\u2019 in Miscellaneous\n  Lectures, &c. His evidence is examined in detail in my \u2018Early History\n  of Mankind,\u2019 ch. vii. See also W. Cooke Taylor, \u2018Natural History of\n  Society.\u2019\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  Goguet, vol. iii. p. 270.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  Lecret. v. 923, &c.; see Hor. Sat. i. 3.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  \u2018Avesta,\u2019 trans. Spiegel & Bleeck, vol. ii. p. 50.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  Hardy, \u2018Manual of Budhism,\u2019 pp. 64, 128.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  Niebuhr, \u2018R\u00f6mische Geschichte,\u2019 part i. p. 88: \u2018Nur das haben sie\n  \u00fcbersehen, dasz kein einziges Beyspiel von einem wirklich wilden Volk\n  aufzuweisen ist, welches frey zur Cultur \u00fcbergegangen w\u00e4re.\u2019\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  Whately, \u2018Essay on Origin of Civilisation.\u2019\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  Ovid. Ex Ponto, iii. 8; see Grote, \u2018History of Greece,\u2019 vol. xii. p.\n  641.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n  W. C. Taylor, \u2018Nat. Hist. of Society,\u2019 vol. i. p. 202.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n  Fynes Moryson, \u2018Itinerary;\u2019 London, 1617, part iii. p. 162, &c.; J.\n  Evans in \u2018Arch\u00e6ologia,\u2019 vol. xli. See description of hide-boiling,\n  &c., among the wild Irish, about 1550, in Andrew Boorde, \u2018Introduction\n  of Knowledge,\u2019 ed. by F. J. Furnivall, Early English Text Soc. 1870.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n  Buchanan, \u2018Rerum Scoticarum Historia;\u2019 Edinburgh, 1528, p. 7. See\n  \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 2nd ed. p. 272.\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n  Martin, \u2018Description of Western Islands,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p.\n  639.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n  Barrow, \u2018Mutiny of the Bounty\u2019; W. Brodie, \u2018Pitcairn\u2019s Island.\u2019\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n  Wallace, \u2018Malay Archipelago,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 42, 471; vol. ii. pp. 11,\n  43, 48; Latham, \u2018Descr. Eth.,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 492-5; D. and C.\n  Livingstone, \u2018Exp. to Zambesi,\u2019 p. 45.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n  Southey, \u2018History of Brazil,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 422.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n  J. L. Wilson, \u2018W. Afr.,\u2019 p. 189.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n  Waitz, \u2018Anthropologie,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 359, see 91; Du Chaillu,\n  \u2018Ashangoland,\u2019 p. 116; T. H. Bent, \u2018Ruined Cities of Mashonaland.\u2019\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n  Charlevoix, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 vol. vi. p. 51.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n  Irving, \u2018Astoria,\u2019 vol. ii. ch. v.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n  Milton and Cheadle, \u2018North West Passage by Land,\u2019 p. 241; Waitz, vol.\n  iii. pp. 74-6.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n  \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 p. 187.\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Res.,\u2019 vol. i. p. 50.\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n  Steller, \u2018Kamtschatka,\u2019 p. 272.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n  See G. Campbell, \u2018Ethnology of India,\u2019 in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1866\n  part ii.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n  J. Bailey, \u2018Veddahs,\u2019 in Tr. Eth. Soc., vol. ii. p. 278; see vol. iii.\n  p. 70; Knox, \u2018Historical Relation of Ceylon,\u2019 London, 1681, part iii.\n  chap. i. See A. Thomson, \u2018Osteology of the Veddas,\u2019 in Journ. Anthrop.\n  Inst. 1889, vol. xix. p. 125; L. de Zoysa, \u2018Origin of Veddas,\u2019 in\n  Journ. Ceylon Branch Royal Asiatic Soc., vol. vii.; B. F. Hartshorne\n  in Fortnightly Rev., Mar. 1876. [Note to 3rd edition.]\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n  Journ. Ind. Archip., vol. i. pp. 295-9; vol. ii. p. 237.\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n  For the connexion between the Aztec language and the Sonoran family\n  extending N. W. toward the sources of the Missouri, see Buschmann,\n  \u2018Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im N\u00f6rdlichen Mexico,\u2019 &c., in Abh.\n  der Akad. der Wissensch, 1854; Berlin, 1859; also Tr. Eth. Soc., vol.\n  ii. p. 130. For the connexion between the Natchez and Maya languages\n  see Daniel G. Brinton, in \u2018American Historical Magazine,\u2019 1867, vol.\n  i. p. 16; and \u2018Myths of the New World,\u2019 p. 28.\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n  J. H. Lamprey, in Trans. of Prehistoric Congress, Norwich, 1868, p.\n  60; J. Linton Palmer, in Journ. Eth. Soc., vol. i. 1869.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n  Squier and Davis, \u2018Mon. of Mississippi Valley,\u2019 &c., in Smithsonian\n  Contr., vol. i. 1848; Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 chap. vii.; Waitz,\n  \u2018Anthropologie,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 72; Bartram, \u2018Creek and Cherokee Ind.,\u2019\n  in Tr. Amer. Ethnol. Soc., vol. iii. part i. See Petrie, \u2018Inductive\n  Metrology,\u2019 1877, p. 122. [Note to 3rd ed.]\n\nFootnote 38:\n\n  St. John, \u2018Life in Forests of Far East,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 327.\n\nFootnote 39:\n\n  Rafn, \u2018Americas Arctiske Landes Gamle Geographic,\u2019 pl. vii., viii.\n\nFootnote 40:\n\n  Lubbock (Lord Avebury), in \u2018Report of British Association, 1867,\u2019 p.\n  121.\n\nFootnote 41:\n\n  Lyell, \u2018Antiquity of Man,\u2019 chap. xix.\n\nFootnote 42:\n\n  Frere, in \u2018Arch\u00e6ologia,\u2019 1800.\n\nFootnote 43:\n\n  J. Evans, in \u2018Arch\u00e6ologia,\u2019 1861; Lubbock,\u2019Prehistoric Times,\u2019 2nd\n  ed., p. 335.\n\nFootnote 44:\n\n  See \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 2nd ed. chap. viii.\n\nFootnote 45:\n\n  Argyll, \u2018Primeval Man,\u2019 p. 129.\n\nFootnote 46:\n\n  Lecret. De Rerum Natura, v. 1281.\n\nFootnote 47:\n\n  See Lyell, \u2018Antiquity of Man,\u2019 3rd ed. 1863; Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric\n  Times, 2nd ed. 1870; \u2018Trans. of Congress of Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology\u2019\n  (Norwich, 1868); Stevens, \u2018Flint Chips, &c.,\u2019 1870; Nilsson,\n  \u2018Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia\u2019 (ed. by Lubbock, 1868);\n  Falconer, \u2018Pal\u00e6ontological Memoirs, &c.\u2019; Lartet and Christy,\n  \u2018Reliqui\u00e6 Aquitanic\u00e6\u2019 (ed. by T. R. Jones); Keller, \u2018Lake Dwellings\u2019\n  (Tr. and Ed. by J. E. Lee), &c., &c.\n\nFootnote 48:\n\n  Wallace, \u2018Indian Archipelago,\u2019 vol. i. p. 357.\n\nFootnote 49:\n\n  \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 pp. 192, 243, &c., &c.\n\nFootnote 50:\n\n  Nilsson, \u2018Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia,\u2019 p. 104.\n\nFootnote 51:\n\n  Klemm, \u2018Allg. Culturwissenschaft,\u2019 part ii., Werkzeuge und Waffen.\n\nFootnote 52:\n\n  Lane Fox (Pitt-Rivers), \u2018Lectures on Primitive Warfare,\u2019 Journ. United\n  Service Inst., 1867-9.\n\nFootnote 53:\n\n  Evans in \u2018Trans. of Congress of Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology\u2019 (Norwich,\n  1868), p. 191; Rau in \u2018Smithsonian Reports,\u2019 1868; Sir E. Belcher in\n  Tr. Eth. Soc., vol. i. p. 129.\n\nFootnote 54:\n\n  See details in \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 chap. vii.-ix.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n                          SURVIVAL IN CULTURE.\n\n    Survival and Superstition\u2014Children\u2019s games\u2014Games of\n    chance\u2014Traditional sayings\u2014Nursery\n    poems\u2014Proverbs\u2014Riddles\u2014Significance and survival in Customs:\n    sneezing-formula, rite of foundation-sacrifice, prejudice against\n    saving a drowning man.\n\n\nWhen a custom, an art, or an opinion is fairly started in the world,\ndisturbing influences may long affect it so slightly that it may keep\nits course from generation to generation, as a stream once settled in\nits bed will flow on for ages. This is mere permanence of culture; and\nthe special wonder about it is that the change and revolution of human\naffairs should have left so many of its feeblest rivulets to run so\nlong. On the Tatar steppes, six hundred years ago, it was an offence to\ntread on the threshold or touch the ropes in entering a tent, and so it\nappears to be still.[55] Eighteen centuries ago Ovid mentions the vulgar\nRoman objection to marriages in May, which he not unreasonably explains\nby the occurrence in that month of the funeral rites of the Lemuralia:\u2014\n\n               \u2018Nec vidu\u00e6 t\u00e6dis eadem nec virginis apta\n                 Tempora. Qu\u00e6 nupsit, non diuturna fuit.\n               Hac quoque de causa, si te proverbia tangunt,\n                 Mense malas Maio nubere volgus ait.\u2019[56]\n\nThe saying that marriages in May are unlucky survives to this day in\nEngland, a striking example how an idea, the meaning of which has\nperished for ages, may continue to exist simply because it has existed.\n\nNow there are thousands of cases of this kind which have become, so to\nspeak, landmarks in the course of culture. When in the process of time\nthere has come general change in the condition of a people, it is usual,\nnotwithstanding, to find much that manifestly had not its origin in the\nnew state of things, but has simply lasted on into it. On the strength\nof these survivals, it becomes possible to declare that the civilization\nof the people they are observed among must have been derived from an\nearlier state, in which the proper home and meaning of these things are\nto be found; and thus collections of such facts are to be worked as\nmines of historic knowledge. In dealing with such materials, experience\nof what actually happens is the main guide, and direct history has to\nteach us, first and foremost, how old habits hold their ground in the\nmidst of a new culture which certainly would never have brought them in,\nbut on the contrary presses hard to thrust them out. What this direct\ninformation is like, a single example may show. The Dayaks of Borneo\nwere not accustomed to chop wood, as we do, by notching out V-shaped\ncuts. Accordingly, when the white man intruded among them with this\namong other novelties, they marked their disgust at the innovation by\nlevying a fine on any of their own people who should be caught chopping\nin the European fashion; yet so well aware were the native wood-cutters\nthat the white man\u2019s plan was an improvement on their own, that they\nwould use it surreptitiously when they could trust one another not to\ntell.[57] The account is twenty years old, and very likely the foreign\nchop may have ceased to be an offence against Dayak conservatism, but\nits prohibition was a striking instance of survival by ancestral\nauthority in the very teeth of common sense. Such a proceeding as this\nwould be usually, and not improperly, described as a superstition; and,\nindeed, this name would be given to a large proportion of survivals,\nsuch for instance as may be collected by the hundred from books of\nfolk-lore and occult science. But the term superstition now implies a\nreproach, and though this reproach may be often cast deservedly on\nfragments of a dead lower culture embedded in a living higher one, yet\nin many cases it would be harsh, and even untrue. For the ethnographer\u2019s\npurpose, at any rate, it is desirable to introduce such a term as\n\u2018survival,\u2019 simply to denote the historical fact which the word\n\u2018superstition\u2019 is now spoiled for expressing. Moreover, there have to be\nincluded as partial survivals the mass of cases where enough of the old\nhabit is kept up for its origin to be recognizable, though in taking a\nnew form it has been so adapted to new circumstances as still to hold\nits place on its own merits.\n\nThus it would be seldom reasonable to call the children\u2019s games of\nmodern Europe superstitions, though many of them are survivals, and\nindeed remarkable ones. If the games of children and of grown-up people\nbe examined with an eye to ethnological lessons to be gained from them,\none of the first things that strikes us is how many of them are only\nsportive imitations of the serious business of life. As children in\nmodern civilized times play at dining and driving horses and going to\nchurch, so a main amusement of savage children is to imitate the\noccupations which they will carry on in earnest a few years later, and\nthus their games are in fact their lessons. The Esquimaux children\u2019s\nsports are shooting with a tiny bow and arrow at a mark, and building\nlittle snow-huts, which they light up with scraps of lamp-wick begged\nfrom their mothers.[58] Miniature boomerangs and spears are among the\ntoys of Australian children; and even as the fathers keep up as a\nrecognized means of getting themselves wives the practice of carrying\nthem off by violence, so playing at such Sabine marriage has been\nnoticed as one of the regular games of the little native boys and\ngirls.[59] Now it is quite a usual thing in the world for a game to\noutlive the serious practice of which it is an imitation. The bow and\narrow is a conspicuous instance. Ancient and widespread in savage\nculture, we trace this instrument through barbaric and classic life and\nonward to a high medi\u00e6val level. But now, when we look on at an archery\nmeeting, or go by country lanes at the season when toy bows and arrows\nare \u2018in\u2019 among the children, we see, reduced to a mere sportive\nsurvival, the ancient weapon which among a few savage tribes still keeps\nits deadly place in the hunt and the battle. The cross-bow, a\ncomparatively late and local improvement on the longbow, has disappeared\nyet more utterly from practical use; but as a toy it is in full European\nservice, and likely to remain so. For antiquity and wide diffusion in\nthe world, through savage up to classic and medi\u00e6val times, the sling\nranks with the bow and arrow. But in the middle ages it fell out of use\nas a practical weapon, and it was all in vain that the 15th century poet\ncommended the art of slinging among the exercises of a good soldier:\u2014\n\n             \u2018Use eek the cast of stone, with slynge or honde:\n               It falleth ofte, yf other shot there none is,\n             Men harneysed in steel may not withstonde,\n               The multitude and mighty cast of stonys;\n             And stonys in effecte, are every where,\n             And slynges are not noyous for to beare.\u2019[60]\n\nPerhaps as serious a use of the sling as can now be pointed out without\nthe limits of civilization is among the herdsmen of Spanish America, who\nsling so cleverly that the saying is they can hit a beast on either horn\nand turn him which way they will. But the use of the rude old weapon is\nespecially kept up by boys at play, who are here again the\nrepresentatives of remotely ancient culture.\n\nAs games thus keep up the record of primitive warlike arts, so they\nreproduce, in what are at once sports and little children\u2019s lessons,\nearly stages in the history of childlike tribes of mankind. English\nchildren delighting in the imitations of cries of animals and so forth,\nand New Zealanders playing their favourite game of imitating in chorus\nthe saw hissing, the adze chipping, the musket roaring, and the other\ninstruments making their proper noises, are alike showing at its source\nthe imitative element so important in the formation of language.[61]\nWhen we look into the early development of the art of counting, and see\nthe evidence of tribe after tribe having obtained numerals through the\nprimitive stage of counting on their fingers, we find a certain\nethnographic interest in the games which teach this earliest numeration.\nThe New Zealand game of \u2018ti\u2019 is described as played by counting on the\nfingers, a number being called by one player, and he having instantly to\ntouch the proper finger; while in the Samoan game one player holds out\nso many fingers, and his opponent must do the same instantly or lose a\npoint.[62] These may be native Polynesian games, or they may be our own\nchildren\u2019s games borrowed. In the English nursery the child learns to\nsay how many fingers the nurse shows, and the appointed formula of the\ngame is \u2018_Buck, Buck_, how many horns do I hold up?\u2019 The game of one\nholding up fingers and the others holding up fingers to match is\nmentioned in Strutt. We may see small schoolboys in the lanes playing at\nthe guessing-game, where one gets on another\u2019s back and holds up\nfingers, the other must guess how many. It is interesting to notice the\nwide distribution and long permanence of these trifles in history when\nwe read the following passage from Petronius Arbiter, written in the\ntime of Nero:\u2014\u2018Trimalchio, not to seem moved by the loss, kissed the boy\nand bade him get up on his back. Without delay the boy climbed on\nhorseback on him, and slapped him on the shoulders with his hand,\nlaughing and calling out \u2018_bucca, bucca_, quot sunt hic?\u2019[63] The simple\ncounting-games played with the fingers must not be confounded with the\naddition-game, where each player throws out a hand, and the sum of all\nthe fingers shown has to be called, the successful caller scoring a\npoint; each should call the total before he sees his adversary\u2019s hand,\nso that the skill lies especially in shrewd guessing. This game affords\nendless amusement to Southern Europe, where it is known in Italian as\n\u2018morra,\u2019 and in French as \u2018mourre,\u2019 and it is popular in China under the\nname of _ts\u2019ai mei_, or \u2018guess how many!\u2019 So peculiar a game would\nhardly have been invented twice over in Europe and Asia, and as the\nChinese term does not appear to be ancient, we may take it as likely\nthat the Portuguese merchants introduced the game into China, as they\ncertainly did into Japan. The ancient Egyptians, as their sculptures\nshow, used to play at some kind of finger-game, and the Romans had their\nfinger-flashing, \u2018micare digitis,\u2019 at which butchers used to gamble with\ntheir customers for bits of meat. It is not clear whether these were\nmorra or some other games.[64]\n\nWhen Scotch lads, playing at the game of \u2018tappie-tousie,\u2019 take one\nanother by the forelock and say, \u2018Will ye be my man?\u2019[65] they know\nnothing of the old symbolic manner of receiving a bondman which they are\nkeeping up in survival. The wooden drill for making fire by friction,\nwhich so many rude or ancient races are known to have used as their\ncommon household instrument, and which lasts on among the modern Hindus\nas the time-honoured sacred means of lighting the pure sacrificial\nflame, has been found surviving in Switzerland as a toy among the\nchildren, who made fire with it in sport, much as Equimaux would have\ndone in earnest.[66] In Gothland it is on record that the ancient\nsacrifice of the wild boar has actually been carried on into modern time\nin sportive imitation, by lads in masquerading clothes with their faces\nblackened and painted, while the victim was personated by a boy rolled\nup in furs and placed upon a seat, with a tuft of pointed straws in his\nmouth to imitate the bristles of the boar.[67] One innocent little\nchild\u2019s sport of our own time is strangely mixed up with an ugly story\nof about a thousand years ago. The game in question is thus played in\nFrance:\u2014The children stand in a ring, one lights a spill of paper and\npasses it on to the next, saying, \u2018petit bonhomme vit encore,\u2019 and so on\nround the ring, each saying the words and passing on the flame as\nquickly as may be, for the one in whose hands the spill goes out has to\npay a forfeit, and it is then proclaimed that \u2018petit bonhomme est mort.\u2019\nGrimm mentions a similar game in Germany, played with a burning stick,\nand Halliwell gives the nursery rhyme which is said with it when it is\nplayed in England:\u2014\n\n            \u2018Jack\u2019s alive and in very good health,\n            If he dies in your hand you must look to yourself.\u2019\n\nNow, as all readers of Church history know, it used to be a favourite\nengine of controversy for the adherents of an established faith to\naccuse heretical sects of celebrating hideous orgies as the mysteries of\ntheir religion. The Pagans told these stories of the Jews, the Jews told\nthem of the Christians, and Christians themselves reached a bad eminence\nin the art of slandering religious opponents whose moral life often\nseems in fact to have been exceptionally pure. The Manich\u00e6ans were an\nespecial mark for such aspersions, which were passed on to a sect\nconsidered as their successors\u2014the Paulicians, whose name reappears in\nthe middle ages, in connexion with the Cathari. To these latter,\napparently from an expression in one of their religious formulas, was\ngiven the name of Boni Homines, which became a recognized term for the\nAlbigenses. It is clear that the early Paulicians excited the anger of\nthe orthodox by objecting to sacred images, and calling those who\nvenerated them idolaters; and about A.D. 700, John of Osun, Patriarch of\nArmenia, wrote a diatribe against the sect, urging accusations of the\nregular anti-Manich\u00e6an type, but with a peculiar feature which brings\nhis statement into the present singular connexion. He declares that they\nblasphemously call the orthodox \u2018image-worshippers;\u2019 that they\nthemselves worship the sun; that, moreover, they mix wheaten flour with\nthe blood of infants and therewith celebrate their communion, and \u2018when\nthey have slain by the worst of deaths a boy, the first-born of his\nmother, thrown from hand to hand among them by turns, they venerate him\nin whose hand the child expires, as having attained to the first dignity\nof the sect.\u2019 To explain the correspondence of these atrocious details\nwith the nursery sport, it is perhaps the most likely supposition, not\nthat the game of \u2018Petit Bonhomme\u2019 keeps up a recollection of a legend of\nthe Boni Homines, but that the game was known to the children of the\neighth century much as it is now, and that the Armenian Patriarch simply\naccused the Paulicians of playing at it with live babes.[68]\n\nIt may be possible to trace another interesting group of sports as\nsurvivals from a branch of savage philosophy, once of high rank though\nnow fallen into merited decay. Games of chance correspond so closely\nwith arts of divination belonging already to savage culture, that there\nis force in applying to several such games the rule that the serious\npractice comes first, and in time may dwindle to the sportive survival.\nTo a modern educated man, drawing lots or tossing up a coin is an appeal\nto chance, that is, to ignorance; it is committing the decision of a\nquestion to a mechanical process, itself in no way unnatural or even\nextraordinary, but merely so difficult to follow that no one can say\nbeforehand what will come of it. But we also know that this scientific\ndoctrine of chance is not that of early civilization, which has little\nin common with the mathematician\u2019s theory of probabilities, but much in\ncommon with such sacred divination as the choice of Matthias by lot as a\ntwelfth apostle, or, in a later age, the Moravian Brethren\u2019s rite of\nchoosing wives for their young men by casting lots with prayer. It was\nto no blind chance that the Maoris looked when they divined by throwing\nup lots to find a thief among a suspected company;[69] or the Guinea\nnegroes when they went to the fetish-priest, who shuffled his bundle of\nlittle strips of leather and gave his sacred omen.[70] The crowd with\nuplifted hands pray to the gods, when the heroes cast lots in the cap of\nAtreides Agamemnon, to know who shall go forth to do battle with Hektor\nand help the well-greaved Greeks.[71] With prayer to the gods, and\nlooking up to heaven, the German priest or father, as Tacitus relates,\ndrew three lots from among the marked fruit-tree twigs scattered on a\npure white garment, and interpreted the answer from their signs.[72] As\nin ancient Italy oracles gave responses by graven lots,[73] so the\nmodern Hindus decide disputes by casting lots in front of a temple,\nappealing to the gods with cries of \u2018Let justice be shown! Show the\ninnocent!\u2019[74]\n\nThe uncivilized man thinks that lots or dice are adjusted in their fall\nwith reference to the meaning he may choose to attach to it, and\nespecially he is apt to suppose spiritual beings standing over the\ndiviner or the gambler, shuffling the lots or turning up the dice to\nmake them give their answers. This view held its place firmly in the\nmiddle ages, and later in history we still find games of chance looked\non as results of supernatural operation. The general change from\nmedi\u00e6val to modern notions in this respect is well shown in a remarkable\nwork published in 1619, which seems to have done much toward bringing\nthe change about. Thomas Gataker, a Puritan minister, in his treatise\n\u2018Of the Nature and Use of Lots,\u2019 states, in order to combat them, the\nfollowing among the current objections made against games of\nchance:\u2014\u2018Lots may not be used but with great reverence, because the\ndisposition of them commeth immediately from God\u2019 ... \u2018the nature of a\nLot, which is affirmed to bee a worke of Gods speciall and immediate\nprovidence, a sacred oracle, a divine judgement or sentence: the light\nuse of it therefore to be an abuse of Gods name; and so a sinne against\nthe third Commandement.\u2019 Gataker, in opposition to this, argues that \u2018to\nexpect the issue and event of it, as by ordinarie meanes from God, is\ncommon to all actions: to expect it by an immediate and extraordinarie\nworke is no more lawfull here than elsewhere, yea is indeed mere\nsuperstition.\u2019[75] It took time, however, for this opinion to become\nprevalent in the educated world. After a lapse of forty years, Jeremy\nTaylor could still bring out a remnant of the older notion, in the\ncourse of a generally reasonable argument in favour of games of chance\nwhen played for refreshment and not for money. \u2018I have heard,\u2019 he says,\n\u2018from them that have skill in such things, there are such strange\nchances, such promoting of a hand by fancy and little arts of geomancy,\nsuch constant winning on one side, such unreasonable losses on the\nother, and these strange contingencies produce such horrible effects,\nthat it is not improbable that God hath permitted the conduct of such\ngames of chance to the devil, who will order them so where he can do\nmost mischief; but, without the instrumentality of money, he could do\nnothing at all.\u2019[76] With what vitality the notion of supernatural\ninterference in games of chance even now survives in Europe, is well\nshown by the still flourishing arts of gambler\u2019s magic. The folk-lore of\nour own day continues to teach that a Good Friday\u2019s egg is to be carried\nfor luck in gaming, and that a turn of one\u2019s chair will turn one\u2019s\nfortune; the Tyrolese knows the charm for getting from the devil the\ngift of winning at cards and dice; there is still a great sale on the\ncontinent for books which show how to discover, from dreams, good\nnumbers for the lottery; and the Lusatian peasant will even hide his\nlottery-tickets under the altar-cloth that they may receive the blessing\nwith the sacrament, and so stand a better chance of winning.[77]\n\nArts of divination and games of chance are so similar in principle, that\nthe very same instrument passes from one use to the other. This appears\nin the accounts, very suggestive from this point of view, of the\nPolynesian art of divination by spinning the \u2018niu\u2019 or coco-nut. In the\nTongan Islands, in Mariner\u2019s time, the principal purpose for which this\nwas solemnly performed was to enquire if a sick person would recover;\nprayer was made aloud to the patron god of the family to direct the nut,\nwhich was then spun, and its direction at rest indicated the intention\nof the god. On other occasions, when the coco-nut was merely spun for\namusement, no prayer was made, and no credit given to the result. Here\nthe serious and the sportive use of this rudimentary teetotum are found\ntogether. In the Samoan Islands, however, at a later date, the Rev. G.\nTurner finds the practice passed into a different stage. A party sit in\na circle, the coco-nut is spun in the middle, and the oracular answer is\naccording to the person towards whom the monkey-face of the fruit is\nturned when it stops; but whereas formerly the Samoans used this as an\nart of divination to discover thieves, now they only keep it up as a way\nof casting lots, and as a game of forfeits.[78] It is in favour of the\nview of serious divination being the earlier use, to notice that the New\nZealanders, though they have no coco-nuts, keep up a trace of the time\nwhen their ancestors in the tropical islands had them and divined with\nthem; for it is the well-known Polynesian word \u2018niu,\u2019 i.e. coco-nut,\nwhich is still retained in use among the Maoris for other kinds of\ndivination, especially that performed with sticks. Mr. Taylor, who\npoints out this curiously neat piece of ethnological evidence, records\nanother case to the present purpose. A method of divination was to clap\nthe hands together while a proper charm was repeated; if the fingers\nwent clear in, it was favourable, but a check was an ill omen; on the\nquestion of a party crossing the country in war-time, the locking of all\nthe fingers, or the stoppage of some or all, were naturally interpreted\nto mean clear passage, meeting a travelling party, or being stopped\naltogether. This quaint little symbolic art of divination seems now only\nto survive as a game; it is called \u2018puni-puni.\u2019[79] A similar connexion\nbetween divination and gambling is shown by more familiar instruments.\nThe hucklebones or astragali were used in divination in ancient Rome,\nbeing converted into rude dice by numbering the four sides, and even\nwhen the Roman gambler used the tali for gambling, he would invoke a god\nor his mistress before he made his throw.[80] Such implements are now\nmostly used for play, but, nevertheless, their use for divination was by\nno means confined to the ancient world, for hucklebones are mentioned in\nthe 17th century among the fortune-telling instruments which young girls\ndivined for husbands with,[81] and Negro sorcerers still throw dice as a\nmeans of detecting thieves.[82] Lots serve the two purposes equally\nwell. The Chinese gamble by lots for cash and sweetmeats, whilst they\nalso seriously take omens by solemn appeals to the lots kept ready for\nthe purpose in the temples, and professional diviners sit in the\nmarket-places, thus to open the future to their customers.[83]\nPlaying-cards are still in European use for divination. That early sort\nknown as \u2018tarots\u2019 which the French dealer\u2019s license to sell \u2018cartes et\ntarots\u2019 still keeps in mind, is said to be preferred by fortune-tellers\nto the common kind; for the tarot-pack, with its more numerous and\ncomplex figures, lends itself to a greater variety of omens. In these\ncases, direct history fails to tell us whether the use of the instrument\nfor omen or play came first. In this respect, the history of the Greek\n\u2018kottabos\u2019 is instructive. This art of divination consisted in flinging\nwine out of a cup into a metal basin some distance off without spilling\nany, the thrower saying or thinking his mistress\u2019s name, and judging\nfrom the clear or dull splash of the wine on the metal what his fortune\nin love would be; but in time the magic passed out of the process, and\nit became a mere game of dexterity played for a prize.[84] If this be a\ntypical case, and the rule be relied on that the serious use precedes\nthe playful, then games of chance may be considered survivals in\nprinciple or detail from corresponding processes of magic\u2014as divination\nin sport made gambling in earnest.\n\nSeeking more examples of the lasting on of fixed habits among mankind,\nlet us glance at a group of time-honoured traditional sayings, old saws\nwhich have a special interest as cases of survival. Even when the real\nsignification of these phrases has faded out of men\u2019s minds, and they\nhave sunk into sheer nonsense, or have been overlaid with some modern\nsuperficial meaning, still the old formulas are handed on, often gaining\nmore in mystery than they lose in sense. We may hear people talk of\n\u2018buying a pig in a poke,\u2019 whose acquaintance with English does not\nextend to knowing what a poke is. And certainly those who wish to say\nthat they have a great mind to something, and who express themselves by\ndeclaring that they have \u2018a month\u2019s mind\u2019 to it, can have no conception\nof the hopeless nonsense they are making of the old term of the \u2018month\u2019s\nmind,\u2019 which was really the monthly service for a dead man\u2019s soul,\nwhereby he was kept in mind or remembrance. The proper sense of the\nphrase \u2018sowing his wild oats\u2019 seems generally lost in our modern use of\nit. No doubt it once implied that these ill weeds would spring up in\nlater years, and how hard it would then be to root them out. Like the\nenemy in the parable, the Scandinavian Loki, the mischief-maker, is\nproverbially said in Jutland to sow his oats (\u2018nu saaer Lokken sin\nhavre\u2019), and the name of \u2018Loki\u2019s oats\u2019 (Lokeshavre) is given in Danish\nto the wild oats (avena fatua).[85] Sayings which have their source in\nsome obsolete custom or tale, of course lie especially open to such\nill-usage. It has become mere English to talk of an \u2018unlicked cub\u2019 who\n\u2018wants licking into shape,\u2019 while few remember the explanation of these\nphrases from Pliny\u2019s story that bears are born as eyeless, hairless,\nshapeless lumps of white flesh, and have afterwards to be licked into\nform.[86]\n\nAgain, in relics of old magic and religion, we have sometimes to look\nfor a deeper sense in conventional phrases than they now carry on their\nface, or for a real meaning in what now seems nonsense. How an\nethnographical record may become embodied in a popular saying, a Tamil\nproverb now current in South India will show perfectly. On occasions\nwhen A hits B, and C cries out at the blow, the bystanders will say,\n\u2018\u2019Tis like a Koravan eating asaf\u0153tida when his wife lies in!\u2019 Now a\nKoravan belongs to a low race in Madras, and is defined as \u2018gipsy,\nwanderer, ass-driver, thief, eater of rats, dweller in mat tents,\nfortune-teller, and suspected character;\u2019 and the explanation of the\nproverb is, that whereas native women generally eat asaf\u0153tida as\nstrengthening medicine after childbirth, among the Koravans it is the\nhusband who eats it to fortify himself on the occasion. This, in fact,\nis a variety of the world-wide custom of the \u2018couvade,\u2019 where at\nchildbirth the husband undergoes medical treatment, in many cases being\nput to bed for days. It appears that the Koravans are among the races\npractising this quaint custom, and that their more civilized Tamil\nneighbours, struck by its oddity, but unconscious of its now-forgotten\nmeaning, have taken it up into a proverb.[87] Let us now apply the same\nsort of ethnographical key to dark sayings in our own modern language.\nThe maxim, a \u2018hair of the dog that bit you\u2019 was originally neither a\nmetaphor nor a joke, but a matter-of-fact recipe for curing the bite of\na dog; one of the many instances of the ancient hom\u0153opathic doctrine,\nthat what hurts will also cure: it is mentioned in the Scandinavian\nEdda, \u2018Dog\u2019s hair heals dog\u2019s bite.\u2019[88] The phrase \u2018raising the wind\u2019\nnow passes as humorous slang, but it once, in all seriousness, described\none of the most dreaded of the sorcerer\u2019s arts, practised especially by\nthe Finland wizards, of whose uncanny power over the weather our sailors\nhave not to this day forgotten their old terror. The ancient ceremony or\nordeal of passing through a fire or leaping over burning brands has been\nkept up so vigorously in the British Isles, that Jamieson\u2019s derivation\nof the phrase \u2018to haul over the coals\u2019 from this rite appears in no way\nfar-fetched. It is not long since an Irishwoman in New York was tried\nfor killing her child; she had made it stand on burning coals to find\nout whether it was really her own or a changeling.[89] The English nurse\nwho says to a fretful child, \u2018You got out of bed wrong foot foremost\nthis morning,\u2019 seldom or never knows the meaning of her saying; but this\nis still plain in the German folk-lore rule, that to get out of bed left\nfoot first will bring a bad day,[90] one of the many examples of that\nsimple association of ideas which connects right and left with good and\nbad respectively. To conclude, the phrase \u2018cheating the devil\u2019 seems to\nbelong to that familiar series of legends where a man makes a compact\nwith the fiend, but at the last moment gets off scot-free by the\ninterposition of a saint, or by some absurd evasion\u2014such as whistling\nthe gospel he has bound himself not to say, or refusing to complete his\nbargain at the fall of the leaf, on the plea that the sculptured leaves\nin the church are still on their boughs. One form of the medi\u00e6val\ncompact was for the demon, when he had taught his black art to a class\nof scholars, to seize one of them for his professional fee, by letting\nthem all run for their lives and catching the last\u2014a story obviously\nconnected with another popular saying: \u2018devil take the hindmost.\u2019 But\neven at this game the stupid fiend may be cheated, as is told in the\nfolk-lore of Spain and Scotland, in the legends of the Marqu\u00e9s de\nVillano and the Earl of Southesk, who attended the Devil\u2019s magic schools\nat Salamanca and Padua. The apt scholar only leaves the master his\nshadow to clutch as following hindmost in the race, and with this\nunsubstantial payment the demon must needs be satisfied, while the\nnew-made magician goes forth free, but ever after shadowless.[91]\n\nIt seems a fair inference to think folk-lore nearest to its source is\nwhere it has its highest place and meaning. Thus, if some old rhyme or\nsaying has in one place a solemn import in philosophy or religion, while\nelsewhere it lies at the level of the nursery, there is some ground for\ntreating the serious version as the more original, and the playful one\nas its mere lingering survival. The argument is not safe, but yet is not\nto be quite overlooked. For instance, there are two poems kept in\nremembrance among the modern Jews, and printed at the end of their book\nof Passover services in Hebrew and English. One is that known as \u05d7\u05d3 \u05d2\u05d3\u05d9\u05d0\n(Chad gady\u00e2): it begins, \u2018A kid, a kid, my father bought for two pieces\nof money;\u2019 and it goes on to tell how a cat came and ate the kid, and a\ndog came and bit the cat, and so on to the end.\u2014\u2018Then came the Holy One,\nblessed be He! and slew the angel of death, who slew the butcher, who\nkilled the ox, that drank the water, that quenched the fire, that burnt\nthe stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the kid, that\nmy father bought for two pieces of money, a kid, a kid.\u2019 This\ncomposition is in the \u2018Sepher Haggadah,\u2019 and is looked on by some Jews\nas a parable concerning the past and future of the Holy Land. According\nto one interpretation, Palestine, the kid, is devoured by Babylon the\ncat; Babylon is overthrown by Persia, Persia by Greece, Greece by Rome,\ntill at last the Turks prevail in the land; but the Edomites (i.e. the\nnations of Europe) shall drive out the Turks, the angel of death shall\ndestroy the enemies of Israel, and his children shall be restored under\nthe rule of Messiah. Irrespectively of any such particular\ninterpretation, the solemnity of the ending may incline us to think that\nwe really have the composition here in something like its first form,\nand that it was written to convey a mystic meaning. If so, then it\nfollows that our familiar nursery tale of the old woman who couldn\u2019t get\nher kid (or pig) over the stile, and wouldn\u2019t get home till midnight,\nmust be considered a broken-down adaptation of this old Jewish poem. The\nother composition is a counting-poem, and begins thus:\n\n    \u2018Who knoweth one? I (saith Israel) know One:\n      One is God, who is over heaven and earth.\n    Who knoweth two? I (saith Israel) know two:\n      Two tables of the covenant; but One is our God who is over the\n         heavens and the earth.\u2019\n\n(And so forth, accumulating up to the last verse, which is\u2014)\n\n    \u2018Who knoweth thirteen? I (saith Israel) know thirteen: Thirteen\n    divine attributes, twelve tribes, eleven stars, ten commandments,\n    nine months preceding childbirth, eight days preceding circumcision,\n    seven days of the week, six books of the Mishnah, five books of the\n    Law, four matrons, three patriarchs, two tables of the covenant; but\n    One is our God who is over the heavens and the earth.\u2019\n\nThis is one of a family of counting-poems, apparently held in much\nfavour in medi\u00e6val Christian times, for they are not yet quite forgotten\nin country places. An old Latin version runs: \u2018Unus est Deus,\u2019 &c., and\none of the still-surviving English forms begins, \u2018One\u2019s One all alone,\nand evermore shall be so,\u2019 thence reckoning on as far as \u2018Twelve the\ntwelve apostles.\u2019 Here both the Jewish and Christian forms are or have\nbeen serious, so it is possible that the Jew may have imitated the\nChristian, but the nobler form of the Hebrew poem here again gives it a\nclaim to be thought the earlier.[92]\n\nThe old proverbs brought down by long inheritance into our modern talk\nare far from being insignificant in themselves, for their wit is often\nas fresh, and their wisdom as pertinent, as it ever was. Beyond these\npractical qualities, proverbs are instructive for the place in\nethnography which they occupy. Their range in civilization is limited;\nthey seem scarcely to belong to the lowest tribes, but appear first in a\nsettled form among some of the higher savages. The Fijians, who were\nfound a few years since living in what arch\u00e6ologists might call the\nupper Stone Age, have some well-marked proverbs. They laugh at want of\nforethought by the saying that \u2018The Nakondo people cut the mast first\u2019\n(i.e. before they had built the canoe); and when a poor man looks\nwistfully at what he cannot buy, they say, \u2018Becalmed, and looking at the\nfish.\u2019[93] Among the list of the New Zealanders\u2019 \u2018whakatauki,\u2019 or\nproverbs, one describes a lazy glutton: \u2018Deep throat, but shallow\nsinews;\u2019 another says that the lazy often profit by the work of the\nindustrious: \u2018The large chips made by Hardwood fall to the share of\nSit-still;\u2019 a third moralizes that \u2018A crooked part of a stem of toetoe\ncan be seen; but a crooked part in the heart cannot be seen.\u2019[94] Among\nthe Basutos of South Africa, \u2018Water never gets tired of running\u2019 is a\nreproach to chatterers; \u2018Lions growl while they are eating,\u2019 means that\nthere are people who never will enjoy anything; \u2018The sowing-month is the\nheadache-month,\u2019 describes those lazy folks who make excuses when work\nis to be done; \u2018The thief eats thunderbolts,\u2019 means that he will bring\ndown vengeance from heaven on himself.[95] West African nations are\nespecially strong in proverbial philosophy; so much so that Captain\nBurton amused himself through the rainy season at Fernando Po in\ncompiling a volume of native proverbs,[96] among which there are\nhundreds at about as high an intellectual level as those of Europe. \u2018He\nfled from the sword and hid in the scabbard,\u2019 is as good as our \u2018Out of\nthe frying-pan into the fire;\u2019 and \u2018He who has only his eyebrow for a\ncross-bow can never kill an animal,\u2019 is more picturesque, if less terse\nthan our \u2018Hard words break no bones.\u2019 The old Buddhist aphorism, that\n\u2018He who indulges in enmity is like one who throws ashes to windward,\nwhich come back to the same place and cover him all over,\u2019 is put with\nless prose and as much point in the negro saying, \u2018Ashes fly back in the\nface of him who throws them.\u2019 When someone tries to settle an affair in\nthe absence of the people concerned, the negroes will object that \u2018You\ncan\u2019t shave a man\u2019s head when he is not there,\u2019 while, to explain that\nthe master is not to be judged by the folly of his servant, they say,\n\u2018The rider is not a fool because the horse is.\u2019 Ingratitude is alluded\nto in \u2018The sword knows not the head of the smith\u2019 (who made it), and yet\nmore forcibly elsewhere, \u2018When the calabash had saved them (in the\nfamine), they said, let us cut it for a drinking-cup.\u2019 The popular\ncontempt for poor men\u2019s wisdom is put very neatly in the maxim, \u2018When a\npoor man makes a proverb it does not spread,\u2019 while the very mention of\nmaking a proverb as something likely to happen, shows a land where\nproverb-making is still a living art. Transplanted to the West Indies,\nthe African keeps up this art, as witness these sayings: \u2018Behind dog it\nis dog, but before dog it is Mr. Dog;\u2019 and \u2018Toute cabinette tini\nmaringouin\u2019\u2014\u2018Every cabin has its mosquito.\u2019\n\nThe proverb has not changed its character in the course of history; but\nhas retained from first to last a precisely definite type. The\nproverbial sayings recorded among the higher nations of the world are to\nbe reckoned by tens of thousands, and have a large and well-known\nliterature of their own. But though the range of existence of proverbs\nextends into the highest levels of civilization, this is scarcely true\nof their development. At the level of European culture in the middle\nages, they have indeed a vast importance in popular education, but their\nperiod of actual growth seems already at an end. Cervantes raised the\nproverb-monger\u2019s craft to a pitch it never surpassed; but it must not be\nforgotten that the incomparable Sancho\u2019s wares were mostly heirlooms;\nfor proverbs were even then sinking to remnants of an earlier condition\nof society. As such, they survive among ourselves, who go on using much\nthe same relics of ancestral wisdom as came out of the squire\u2019s\ninexhaustible budget, old saws not to be lightly altered or made anew in\nour changed modern times. We can collect and use the old proverbs, but\nmaking new ones has become a feeble, spiritless imitation, like our\nattempts to invent new myths or new nursery rhymes.\n\nRiddles start near proverbs in the history of civilization, and they\ntravel on long together, though at last towards different ends. By\nriddles are here meant the old-fashioned problems with a real answer\nintended to be discovered, such as the typical enigma of the Sphinx, but\nnot the modern verbal conundrums set in the traditional form of question\nand answer, as a way of bringing in a jest \u00e0 propos of nothing. The\noriginal kind, which may be defined as \u2018sense-riddles,\u2019 are found at\nhome among the upper savages, and range on into the lower and middle\ncivilization; and while their growth stops at this level, many ancient\nspecimens have lasted on in the modern nursery and by the cottage\nfireside. There is a plain reason why riddles should belong only to the\nhigher grades of savagery; their making requires a fair power of ideal\ncomparison, and knowledge must have made considerable advance before\nthis process could become so familiar as to fall from earnest into\nsport. At last, in a far higher state of culture, riddles begin to be\nlooked on as trifling, their growth ceases, and they only survive in\nremnants for children\u2019s play. Some examples chosen among various races,\nfrom savagery upwards, will show more exactly the place in mental\nhistory which the riddle occupies.\n\nThe following are specimens from a collection of Zulu riddles,\nrecorded with quaintly simple native comments on the philosophy of the\nmatter:\u2014_Q._ \u2018Guess ye some men who are many and form a row; they\ndance the wedding-dance, adorned in white hip-dresses?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The\nteeth; we call them men who form a row, for the teeth stand like men\nwho are made ready for a wedding-dance, that they may dance well. When\nwe say, they are \u201cadorned with white hip-dresses,\u201d we put that in,\nthat people may not at once think of teeth, but be drawn away from\nthem by thinking, \u201cIt is men who put on white hip-dresses,\u201d and\ncontinually have their thoughts fixed on men,\u2019 &c. _Q._ \u2018Guess ye a\nman who does not lie down at night: he lies down in the morning until\nthe sun sets; he then awakes, and works all night; he does not work by\nday; he is not seen when he works?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The closing-poles of the\ncattle-pen.\u2019 _Q._ \u2018Guess ye a man whom men do not like to laugh, for\nit is known that his laughter is a very great evil, and is followed by\nlamentation, and an end of rejoicing. Men weep, and trees, and grass;\nand everything is heard weeping in the tribe where he laughs; and they\nsay the man has laughed who does not usually laugh?\u2019 _A._ \u2018Fire. It is\ncalled a man that what is said may not be at once evident, it being\nconcealed by the word \u201cman.\u201d Men say many things, searching out the\nmeaning in rivalry, and missing the mark. A riddle is good when it is\nnot discernible at once,\u2019 &c.[97] Among the Basutos, riddles are a\nrecognized part of education, and are set like exercises to a whole\ncompany of puzzled children. _Q._ \u2018Do you know what throws itself from\nthe mountain top without being broken?\u2019 _A._ \u2018A waterfall.\u2019 _Q._\n\u2018There is a thing that travels fast without legs or wings, and no\ncliff, nor river, nor wall can stop it?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The voice.\u2019 _Q._ \u2018Name\nthe ten trees with ten flat stones on the top of them.\u2019 _A._ \u2018The\nfingers.\u2019 _Q._ \u2018Who is the little immovable dumb boy who is dressed up\nwarm in the day and left naked at night?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The bed-clothes\u2019\npeg.\u2019[98] From East Africa, this Swahili riddle is an example: _Q._\n\u2018My hen has laid among thorns?\u2019 _A._ \u2018A pineapple.\u2019[99] From West\nAfrica, this Yoruba one: \u2018A long slender trading woman who never gets\nto market?\u2019 _A._ \u2018A canoe (it stops at the landing-place).\u2019[100] In\nPolynesia, the Samoan Islanders are given to riddles. _Q._ \u2018There are\nfour brothers, who are always bearing about their father?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The\nSamoan pillow,\u2019 which is a yard of three-inch bamboo resting on four\nlegs. _Q._ \u2018A white-headed man stands above the fence, and reaches to\nthe heavens?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The smoke of the oven.\u2019 _Q._ \u2018A man who stands\nbetween two ravenous fish?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The tongue.\u2019[101] (There is a Zulu\nriddle like this, which compares the tongue to a man living in the\nmidst of enemies fighting.) The following are old Mexican enigmas:\n_Q._ \u2018What are the ten stones one has at his sides?\u2019 _A._ \u2018The\nfinger-nails.\u2019 _Q._ \u2018What is it we get into by three parts and out of\nby one?\u2019 _A._ \u2018A shirt.\u2019 _Q._ \u2018What goes through a valley and drags\nits entrails after it?\u2019 _A._ \u2018A needle.\u2019[102]\n\nThese riddles found among the lower races do not differ at all in nature\nfrom those that have come down, sometimes modernized in the setting,\ninto the nursery lore of Europe. Thus Spanish children still ask, \u2018What\nis the dish of nuts that is gathered by day, and scattered by night?\u2019\n(the stars.) Our English riddle of the pair of tongs: \u2018Long legs,\ncrooked thighs, little head, and no eyes,\u2019 is primitive enough to have\nbeen made by a South Sea Islander. The following is on the same theme as\none of the Zulu riddles: \u2018A flock of white sheep, On a red hill; Here\nthey go, there they go; Now they stand still?\u2019 Another is the very\nanalogue of one of the Aztec specimens: \u2018Old Mother Twitchett had but\none eye, And a long tail which she let fly; And every time she went over\na gap, She left a bit of her tail in a trap?\u2019\n\nSo thoroughly does riddle-making belong to the mythologic stage of\nthought, that any poet\u2019s simile, if not too far-fetched, needs only\ninversion to be made at once into an enigma. The Hindu calls the Sun\nSapt\u00e2sva, i.e. \u2018seven-horsed,\u2019 while, with the same thought, the old\nGerman riddle asks, \u2018What is the chariot drawn by the seven white and\nseven black horses?\u2019 (the year, drawn by the seven days and nights of\nthe week.[103]) Such, too, is the Greek riddle of the two sisters, Day\nand Night, who gave birth each to the other to be born of her again:\n\n              \u0395\u1f30\u03c3\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b3\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b9\u03c4\u03c4\u03b1\u03af, \u1f67\u03bd \u1f21 \u03bc\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03af\u03ba\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\n              \u03a4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f11\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd, \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f74 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u03b5\u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3 \u1f51\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c3\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b5\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9;\n\nand the enigma of Kleoboulos, with its other like fragments of\nrudimentary mythology:\n\n              \u0395\u1f37\u03c2 \u1f40 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1, \u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b4\u03c5\u03ce\u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u00b7 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b4\u03ad \u03b3\u2019 \u1f11\u03ba\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u1ff3\n              \u03a0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f14\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ae\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u2019 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 \u03b5\u1f37\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7\n              \u0397\u03b9 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f14\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f30\u03b4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, \u1f96 \u03b4\u2019 \u03b1\u1f57\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7\n              \u1f08\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u2019 \u1f10\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c6\u03b8\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f04\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n    \u2018One is the father, and twelve the children, and, born unto each\n       one,\n    Maidens thirty, whose form in twain is parted asunder,\n    White to behold on the one side, black to behold on the other,\n    All immortal in being, yet doomed to dwindle and perish.\u2019[104]\n\nSuch questions as these may be fairly guessed now as in old times, and\nmust be distinguished from that scarcer class which require the\ndivination of some unlikely event to solve them. Of such the typical\nexample is Samson\u2019s riddle, and there is an old Scandinavian one like\nit. The story is that Gestr found a duck sitting on her nest in an ox\u2019s\nhorned skull, and thereupon propounded a riddle, describing with\ncharacteristic Northman\u2019s metaphor the ox with its horns fancied as\nalready made into drinking-horns. The following translation does not\nexaggerate the quaintness of the original:\u2014\u2018Joying in children the\nbill-goose grew, And her building-timbers together drew; The biting\ngrass-shearer screened her bed, With the maddening drink-stream\noverhead.\u2019[105] Many of the old oracular responses are puzzles of\nprecisely this kind. Such is the story of the Delphic oracle, which\nordered Temenos to find a man with three eyes to guide the army, which\ninjunction he fulfilled by meeting a one-eyed man on horseback.[106] It\nis curious to find this idea again in Scandinavia, where Odin sets King\nHeidrek a riddle, \u2018Who are they two that fare to the Thing with three\neyes, ten feet, and one tail?\u2019 the answer being, the one-eyed Odin\nhimself on his eight-footed horse Sleipnir.[107]\n\nThe close bearing of the doctrine of survival on the study of manners\nand customs is constantly coming into view in ethnographic research. It\nseems scarcely too much to assert, once for all, that meaningless\ncustoms must be survivals, that they had a practical, or at least\nceremonial, intention when and where they first arose, but are now\nfallen into absurdity from having been carried on into a new state of\nsociety, where their original sense has been discarded. Of course, new\ncustoms introduced in particular ages may be ridiculous or wicked, but\nas a rule they have discernible motives. Explanations of this kind, by\nrecourse to some forgotten meaning, seem on the whole to account best\nfor obscure customs which some have set down to mere outbreaks of\nspontaneous folly. A certain Zimmermann, who published a heavy\n\u2018Geographical History of Mankind\u2019 in the 18th century, remarks as\nfollows on the prevalence of similar nonsensical and stupid customs in\ndistant countries:\u2014\u2018For if two clever heads may, each for himself, hit\nupon a clever invention or discovery, then it is far likelier,\nconsidering the much larger total of fools and blockheads, that like\nfooleries should be given to two far-distant lands. If, then, the\ninventive fool be likewise a man of importance and influence, as is,\nindeed, an extremely frequent case, then both nations adopt a similar\nfolly, and then, centuries after, some historian goes through it to\nextract his evidence for the derivation of these two nations one from\nthe other.\u2019[108]\n\nStrong views as to the folly of mankind seem to have been in the air\nabout the time of the French Revolution, Lord Chesterfield was no doubt\nan extremely different person from our German philosopher, but they were\nquite at one as to the absurdity of customs. Advising his son as to the\netiquette of courts, the Earl writes thus to him:\u2014\u2018For example, it is\nrespectful to bow to the King of England, it is disrespectful to bow to\nthe King of France; it is the rule to courtesy to the Emperor; and the\nprostration of the whole body is required by Eastern Monarchs. These are\nestablished ceremonies, and must be complied with; but why they were\nestablished, I defy sense and reason to tell us. It is the same among\nall ranks, where certain customs are received, and must necessarily be\ncomplied with, though by no means the result of sense and reason. As for\ninstance, the very absurd, though almost universal custom of drinking\npeople\u2019s healths. Can there be anything in the world less relative to\nany other man\u2019s health, than my drinking a glass of wine? Common sense,\ncertainly, never pointed it out, but yet common sense tells me I must\nconform to it.\u2019[109] Now, though it might be difficult enough to make\nsense of the minor details of court etiquette, Lord Chesterfield\u2019s\nexample from it of the irrationality of mankind is a singularly unlucky\none. Indeed, if any one were told to set forth in few words the\nrelations of the people to their rulers in different states of society,\nhe might answer that men grovel on their faces before the King of Siam,\nkneel on one knee or uncover before a European monarch, and shake the\nhand of the President of the United States as though it were a\npump-handle. These are ceremonies at once intelligible and significant.\nLord Chesterfield is more fortunate in his second instance, for the\ncustom of drinking healths is really of obscure origin. Yet it is\nclosely connected with an ancient rite, practically absurd indeed, but\ndone with a conscious and serious intention which lands it quite outside\nthe region of nonsense. This is the custom of pouring out libations and\ndrinking at ceremonial banquets to gods and the dead. Thus the old\nNorthmen drank the \u2018minni\u2019 of Thor, Odin, and Freya, and of kings\nlikewise at their funerals. The custom did not die out with the\nconversion of the Scandinavian and Teutonic nations. Such formulas as\n\u2018God\u2019s minne!\u2019 \u2018a bowl to God in heaven!\u2019 are on record, while in like\nmanner Christ, Mary, and the Saints were drunk to in place of heathen\ngods and heroes, and the habit of drinking to the dead and the living at\nthe same feast and in similar terms goes far to prove here a common\norigin for both ceremonies. The \u2018minne\u2019 was at once love, memory, and\nthe thought of the absent, and it long survived in England in the\n\u2018minnying\u2019 or \u2018mynde\u2019 days, on which the memory of the dead was\ncelebrated by services or banquets. Such evidence as this fairly\njustifies the writers, older and newer, who have treated these\nceremonial drinking usages as in their nature sacrificial.[110] As for\nthe practice of simply drinking the health of living men, its ancient\nhistory reaches us from several districts inhabited by Aryan nations.\nThe Greeks in symposium drank to one another, and the Romans adopted the\nhabit (\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, propinare, Gr\u00e6co more bibere). The Goths cried\n\u2018hails!\u2019 as they pledged each other, as we have it in the curious first\nline of the verses \u2018De conviviis barbaris\u2019 in the Latin Anthology, which\nsets down the shouts of a Gothic drinking-bout of the fifth century or\nso, in words which still partly keep their sense to an English ear.\n\n               \u2018Inter _eils_ Goticum _scapiamatziaia drincan_\n               Non audet quisquam dignos educere versus.\u2019\n\nAs for ourselves, though the old drinking salutation of \u2018w\u00e6s h\u00e6l?\u2019 is no\nlonger vulgar English, the formula remains with us, stiffened into a\nnoun. On the whole, there is presumptive though not conclusive evidence\nthat the custom of drinking healths to the living is historically\nrelated to the religious rite of drinking to the gods and the dead.\n\nLet us now put the theory of survival to a somewhat severe test, by\nseeking from it some explanation of the existence, in practice or\nmemory, within the limits of modern civilized society, of three\nremarkable groups of customs which civilized ideas totally fail to\naccount for. Though we may not succeed in giving clear and absolute\nexplanations of their motives, at any rate it is a step in advance to be\nable to refer their origins to savage or barbaric antiquity. Looking at\nthese customs from the modern practical point of view, one is\nridiculous, the others are atrocious, and all are senseless. The first\nis the practice of salutation on sneezing, the second the rite of laying\nthe foundations of a building on a human victim, the third the prejudice\nagainst saving a drowning man.\n\nIn interpreting the customs connected with sneezing, it is needful to\nrecognize a prevalent doctrine of the lower races, of which a full\naccount will be given in another chapter. As a man\u2019s soul is considered\nto go in and out of his body, so it is with other spirits, particularly\nsuch as enter into patients and possess them or afflict them with\ndisease. Among the less cultured races, the connexion of this idea with\nsneezing is best shown among the Zulus, a people firmly persuaded that\nkindly or angry spirits of the dead hover about them, do them good or\nharm, stand visibly before them in dreams, enter into them, and cause\ndiseases in them. The following particulars are abridged from the native\nstatements taken down by Dr. Callaway:\u2014When a Zulu sneezes, he will say,\n\u2018I am now blessed. The Idhlozi (ancestral spirit) is with me; it has\ncome to me. Let me hasten and praise it, for it is it which causes me to\nsneeze!\u2019 So he praises the manes of his family, asking for cattle, and\nwives, and blessings. Sneezing is a sign that a sick person will be\nrestored to health; he returns thanks after sneezing, saying, \u2018Ye people\nof ours, I have gained that prosperity which I wanted. Continue to look\non me with favour!\u2019 Sneezing reminds a man that he should name the\nItongo (ancestral spirit) of his people without delay, because it is the\nItongo which causes him to sneeze, that he may perceive by sneezing that\nthe Itongo is with him. If a man is ill and does not sneeze, those who\ncome to him ask whether he has sneezed or not; if he has not sneezed,\nthey murmur, saying, \u2018The disease is great!\u2019 If a child sneezes, they\nsay to it, \u2018Grow!\u2019 it is a sign of health. So then, it is said, sneezing\namong black men gives a man strength to remember that the Itongo has\nentered into him and abides with him. The Zulu diviners or sorcerers are\nvery apt to sneeze, which they regard as an indication of the presence\nof the spirits, whom they adore by saying, \u2018Makosi!\u2019 (i.e. lords or\nmasters). It is a suggestive example of the transition of such customs\nas these from one religion to another, that the Amakosa, who used to\ncall on their divine ancestor Utixo when they sneezed, since their\nconversion to Christianity say, \u2018Preserver, look upon me!\u2019 or, \u2018Creator\nof heaven and earth!\u2019[111] Elsewhere in Africa, similar ideas are\nmentioned. Sir Thomas Browne, in his \u2018Vulgar Errors,\u2019 made well known\nthe story that when the King of Monomotapa sneezed, acclamations of\nblessing passed from mouth to mouth through the city; but he should have\nmentioned that Godigno, from whom the original account is taken, said\nthat this took place when the king drank, or coughed, or sneezed.[112] A\nlater account from the other side of the continent is more to the\npurpose. In Guinea, in the last century, when a principal personage\nsneezed, all present fell on their knees, kissed the earth, clapped\ntheir hands, and wished him all happiness and prosperity.[113] With a\ndifferent idea, the negroes of Old Calabar, when a child sneezes, will\nsometimes exclaim, \u2018Far from you!\u2019 with an appropriate gesture as if\nthrowing off some evil.[114] Polynesia is another region where the\nsneezing salutation is well marked. In New Zealand, a charm was said to\nprevent evil when a child sneezed;[115] if a Samoan sneezed, the\nbystanders said, \u2018Life to you!\u2019[116] while in the Tongan group a sneeze\non the starting of an expedition was a most evil presage.[117] A curious\nAmerican instance dates from Hernando de Soto\u2019s famous expedition into\nFlorida, when Guachoya, a native chief, came to pay him a visit. \u2018While\nthis was going on, the cacique Guachoya gave a great sneeze; the\ngentlemen who had come with him and were lining the walls of the hall\namong the Spaniards there all at once bowing their heads, opening their\narms, and closing them again, and making other gestures of great\nveneration and respect, saluted him with different words, all directed\nto one end, saying, \u201cThe Sun guard thee, be with thee, enlighten thee,\nmagnify thee, protect thee, favour thee, defend thee, prosper thee, save\nthee,\u201d and other like phrases, as the words came, and for a good space\nthere lingered the murmur of these words among them, whereat the\ngovernor wondering said to the gentlemen and captains with him, \u201cDo you\nnot see that all the world is one?\u201d This matter was well noted among the\nSpaniards, that among so barbarous a people should be used the same\nceremonies, or greater, than among those who hold themselves to be very\ncivilized. Whence it may be believed that this manner of salutation is\nnatural among all nations, and not caused by a pestilence, as is\nvulgarly said,\u2019 &c.[118]\n\nIn Asia and Europe the sneezing superstition extends through a wide\nrange of race, age, and country.[119] Among the passages relating to it\nin the classic ages of Greece and Rome, the following are some of the\nmost characteristic,\u2014the lucky sneeze of Telemachos in the Odyssey;[120]\nthe soldier\u2019s sneeze and the shout of adoration to the god which rose\nalong the ranks, and which Xenophon appealed to as a favourable\nomen;[121] Aristotle\u2019s remark that people consider a sneeze as divine\n(\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b7\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u1f78\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03bd \u1f21\u03b3\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1 \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9), but not a cough,[122] &c.; the\nGreek epigram on the man with the long nose, who did not say \u0396\u03b5\u1fe6 \u03c3\u1ff6\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd\nwhen he sneezed, for the noise was too far off for him to hear;[123]\nPetronius Arbiter\u2019s mention of the custom of saying \u2018Salve!\u2019 to one who\nsneezed;[124] and Pliny\u2019s question, \u2018Cur sternutamentis salutamus?\u2019\napropos of which he remarks that even Tiberius C\u00e6sar, that saddest of\nmen, exacted this observance.[125] Similar rites of sneezing have long\nbeen observed in Eastern Asia.[126] When a Hindu sneezes, bystanders\nsay, \u2018Live!\u2019 and the sneezer replies, \u2018With you!\u2019 It is an ill omen, to\nwhich among others the Thugs paid great regard on starting on an\nexpedition, and which even compelled them to let the travellers with\nthem escape.[127]\n\nThe Jewish sneezing formula is, \u2018Tobim chayim!\u2019 i.e. \u2018Good life!\u2019[128]\nThe Moslem says, \u2018Praise to Allah!\u2019 when he sneezes, and his friends\ncompliment him with proper formulas, a custom which seems to be conveyed\nfrom race to race wherever Islam extends.[129] Lastly, the custom ranges\nthrough medi\u00e6val into modern Europe. To cite old German examples, \u2018Die\nHeiden nicht endorften niesen, d\u00e2 man doch sprichet \u201cNu helfiu Got?\u201d\u2019\n\u2018Wir sprechen, swer niuset, Got helfe dir.\u2019[130] For a Norman French\ninstance in England, the following lines (A.D. 1100) may serve, which\nshow our old formula \u2018waes h\u00e6l!\u2019 (\u2018may you be well!\u2019\u2014\u2018wassail!\u2019) used\nalso to avert being taken ill after a sneeze:\u2014\n\n                     \u2018E pur une feyze esternuer\n                     Tantot quident mal trouer,\n                     Si _uesbeil_ ne diez aprez.\u2019[131]\n\nIn the \u2018Rules of Civility\u2019 (A.D. 1685, translated from the French) we\nread:\u2014\u2018If his lordship chances to sneeze, you are not to bawl out, \u201cGod\nbless you, sir,\u201d but, pulling off your hat, bow to him handsomely, and\nmake that obsecration to yourself.\u2019[132] It is noticed that Anabaptists\nand Quakers rejected these with other salutations, but they remained in\nthe code of English good manners among high and low till half a century\nor so ago, and are so little forgotten now, that most people still see\nthe point of the story of the fiddler and his wife, where his sneeze and\nher hearty \u2018God bless you!\u2019 brought about the removal of the fiddle\ncase. \u2018Got hilf!\u2019 may still be heard in Germany, and \u2018Felicit\u00e0!\u2019 in\nItaly.\n\nIt is not strange that the existence of these absurd customs should have\nbeen for ages a puzzle to curious enquirers. Especially the\nlegend-mongers took the matter in hand, and their attempts to devise\nhistorical explanations are on record in a group of philosophic\nmyths,\u2014Greek, Jewish, Christian. Prometheus prays for the preservation\nof his artificial man, when it gives the first sign of life by a sneeze;\nJacob prays that man\u2019s soul may not, as heretofore, depart from his body\nwhen he sneezes; Pope Gregory prays to avert the pestilence, in those\ndays when the air was so deadly that he who sneezed died of it; and from\nthese imaginary events legend declares that the use of the sneezing\nformulas was handed down. It is more to our purpose to notice the\nexistence of a corresponding set of ideas and customs connected with\ngaping. Among the Zulus, repeated yawning and sneezing are classed\ntogether as signs of approaching spiritual possession.[133] The Hindu,\nwhen he gapes, must snap his thumb and finger, and repeat the name of\nsome God, as Rama: to neglect this is a sin as great as the murder of a\nBrahman.[134] The Persians ascribe yawning, sneezing, &c., to demoniacal\npossession. Among the modern Moslems generally, when a man yawns, he\nputs the back of his left hand to his mouth, saying, \u2018I seek refuge with\nAllah from Satan the accursed!\u2019 but the act of yawning is to be avoided,\nfor the Devil is in the habit of leaping into a gaping mouth.[135] This\nmay very likely be the meaning of the Jewish proverb, \u2018Open not thy\nmouth to Satan!\u2019 The other half of this idea shows itself clearly in\nJosephus\u2019 story of his having seen a certain Jew, named Eleazar, cure\ndemoniacs in Vespasian\u2019s time, by drawing the demons out through their\nnostrils, by means of a ring containing a root of mystic virtue\nmentioned by Solomon.[136] The account of the sect of the Messalians,\nwho used to spit and blow their noses to expel the demons they might\nhave drawn in with their breath,[137] the records of the medi\u00e6val\nexorcists driving out devils through the patients\u2019 nostrils,[138] and\nthe custom, still kept up in the Tyrol, of crossing oneself when one\nyawns, lest something evil should come into one\u2019s mouth,[139] involve\nsimilar ideas. In comparing the modern Kafir ideas with those of other\ndistricts of the world, we find a distinct notion of a sneeze being due\nto a spiritual presence. This, which seems indeed the key to the whole\nmatter, has been well brought into view by Mr. Haliburton, as displayed\nin Keltic folk-lore, in a group of stories turning on the superstition\nthat any one who sneezes is liable to be carried off by the fairies,\nunless their power be counteracted by an invocation, as \u2018God bless\nyou!\u2019[140] The corresponding idea as to yawning is to be found in an\nIceland folk-lore legend, where the troll, who has transformed herself\ninto the shape of the beautiful queen, says, \u2018When I yawn a little yawn,\nI am a neat and tiny maiden; when I yawn a half-yawn, then I am as a\nhalf-troll; when I yawn a whole yawn, then am I as a whole troll.\u2019[141]\nOn the whole, though the sneezing superstition makes no approach to\nuniversality among mankind, its wide distribution is highly remarkable,\nand it would be an interesting problem to decide how far this wide\ndistribution is due to independent growth in several regions, how far to\nconveyance from race to race, and how far to ancestral inheritance. Here\nit has only to be maintained that it was not originally an arbitrary and\nmeaningless custom, but the working out of a principle.[142] The plain\nstatement by the modern Zulus fits with the hints to be gained from the\nsuperstition and folk-lore of other races, to connect the notions and\npractices as to sneezing with the ancient and savage doctrine of\npervading and invading spirits, considered as good or evil, and treated\naccordingly. The lingering survivals of the quaint old formulas in\nmodern Europe seem an unconscious record of the time when the\nexplanation of sneezing had not yet been given over to physiology, but\nwas still in the \u2018theological stage.\u2019\n\nThere is current in Scotland the belief that the Picts, to whom local\nlegend attributes buildings of prehistoric antiquity, bathed their\nfoundation-stones with human blood; and legend even tells that St.\nColumba found it necessary to bury St. Oran alive beneath the foundation\nof his monastery, in order to propitiate the spirits of the soil who\ndemolished by night what was built during the day. So late as 1843, in\nGermany, when a new bridge was built at Halle, a notion was abroad among\nthe people that a child was wanted to be built into the foundation.\nThese ideas of church or wall or bridge wanting human blood or an\nimmured victim to make the foundation steadfast, are not only widespread\nin European folk-lore, but local chronicle or tradition asserts them as\nmatter of historical fact in district after district. Thus, when the\nbroken dam of the Nogat had to be repaired in 1463, the peasants, on the\nadvice to throw in a living man, are said to have made a beggar drunk\nand buried him there. Thuringian legend declares that to make the castle\nof Liebenstein fast and impregnable, a child was bought for hard money\nof its mother and walled in. It was eating a cake while the masons were\nat work, the story goes, and it cried out, \u2018Mother, I see thee still;\u2019\nthen later, \u2018Mother, I see thee a little still;\u2019 and, as they put in the\nlast stone, \u2018Mother, now I see thee no more.\u2019 The wall of Copenhagen,\nlegend says, sank as fast as it was built; so they took an innocent\nlittle girl, set her on a chair at a table of toys and eatables, and, as\nshe played and ate, twelve master-masons closed a vault over her; then,\nwith clanging music, the wall was raised, and stood firm ever after.\nThus Italian legend tells of the bridge of Arta, that fell in and fell\nin till they walled in the master-builder\u2019s wife, and she spoke her\ndying curse that the bridge should tremble like a flower-stalk\nhenceforth. The Slavonic chiefs founding Detinez, according to old\nheathen custom, sent out men to take the first boy they met and bury him\nin the foundation. Servian legend tells how three brothers combined to\nbuild the fortress of Skadra (Scutari); but, year after year, the demon\n(vila) razed by night what the three hundred masons built by day. The\nfiend must be appeased by a human sacrifice, the first of the three\nwives who should come bringing food to the workmen. All three brothers\nswore to keep the dreadful secret from their wives; but the two eldest\ngave traitorous warning to theirs, and it was the youngest brother\u2019s\nwife who came unsuspecting, and they built her in. But she entreated\nthat an opening should be left for her to suckle her baby through, and\nfor a twelve-month it was brought. To this day, Servian wives visit the\ntomb of the good mother, still marked by a stream of water which\ntrickles, milky with lime, down the fortress wall. Lastly, there is our\nown legend of Vortigern, who could not finish his tower till the\nfoundation-stone was wetted with the blood of a child born of a mother\nwithout a father. As is usual in the history of sacrifice, we hear of\nsubstitutes for such victims; empty coffins walled up in Germany, a lamb\nwalled in under the altar in Denmark to make the church stand fast, and\nthe churchyard in like manner handselled by burying a live horse first.\nIn modern Greece an evident relic of the idea survives in the\nsuperstition that the first passer-by after a foundation-stone is laid\nwill die within the year, wherefore the masons will compromise the debt\nby killing a lamb or a black cock on the stone. With much the same idea\nGerman legend tells of the bridge-building fiend cheated of his promised\nfee, a soul, by the device of making a cock run first across; and thus\nGerman folk-lore says it is well, before entering a new house, to let a\ncat or dog run in.[143] From all this it seems that, with due allowance\nfor the idea having passed into an often-repeated and varied mythic\ntheme, yet written and unwritten tradition do preserve the memory of a\nbloodthirsty barbaric rite, which not only really existed in ancient\ntimes, but lingered long in European history. If now we look to less\ncultured countries, we shall find the rite carried on in our own day\nwith a distinctly religious purpose, either to propitiate the\nearth-spirits with a victim, or to convert the soul of the victim\nhimself into a protecting demon.\n\nIn Africa, in Galam, a boy and girl used to be buried alive before the\ngreat gate of the city to make it impregnable, a practice once executed\non a large scale by a Bambarra tyrant; while in Great Bassam and Yarriba\nsuch sacrifices were usual at the foundation of a house or village.[144]\nIn Polynesia, Ellis heard of the custom, instanced by the fact that the\ncentral pillar of one of the temples at Maeva was planted upon the body\nof a human victim.[145] In Borneo, among the Milanau Dayaks, at the\nerection of the largest house a deep hole was dug to receive the first\npost, which was then suspended over it; a slave girl was placed in the\nexcavation; at a signal the lashings were cut, and the enormous timber\ndescended, crushing the girl to death, a sacrifice to the spirits. St.\nJohn saw a milder form of the rite performed, when the chief of the Quop\nDayaks set up a flagstaff near his house, a chicken being thrown in to\nbe crushed by the descending pole.[146] More cultured nations of\nSouthern Asia have carried on into modern ages the rite of the\nfoundation-sacrifice. A 17th century account of Japan mentions the\nbelief there that a wall laid on the body of a willing human victim\nwould be secure from accident; accordingly, when a great wall was to be\nbuilt, some wretched slave would offer himself as foundation, lying down\nin the trench to be crushed by the heavy stones lowered upon him.[147]\nWhen the gates of the new city of Tavoy, in Tenasserim, were built about\n1780, as Mason relates on the evidence of an eye-witness, a criminal was\nput in each post-hole to become a protecting demon. Thus it appears that\nsuch stories as that of the human victims buried for spirit watchers\nunder the gates of Mandalay, of the queen who was drowned in a Burmese\nreservoir to make the dyke safe, of the hero whose divided body was\nburied under the fortress of Thatung to make it impregnable, are the\nrecords, whether in historical or mythical form, of the actual customs\nof the land.[148] Within our own dominion, when Rajah Sala Byne was\nbuilding the fort of Sialkot in the Punjab, the foundation of the\nsouth-east bastion gave way so repeatedly that he had recourse to a\nsoothsayer, who assured him that it would never stand until the blood of\nan only son was shed there, wherefore the only son of a widow was\nsacrificed.[149] It is thus plain that hideous rites, of which Europe\nhas scarcely kept up more than the dim memory, have held fast their\nancient practice and meaning in Africa, Polynesia, and Asia, among races\nwho represent in grade, if not in chronology, earlier stages of\ncivilization.\n\nWhen Sir Walter Scott, in the \u2018Pirate,\u2019 tells of Bryce the pedlar\nrefusing to help Mordaunt to save the shipwrecked sailor from drowning,\nand even remonstrating with him on the rashness of such a deed, he\nstates an old superstition of the Shetlanders. \u2018Are you mad?\u2019 says the\npedlar; \u2018you that have lived sae lang in Zetland, to risk the saving of\na drowning man? Wot ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be\nsure to do you some capital injury?\u2019 Were this inhuman thought noticed\nin this one district alone, it might be fancied to have had its rise in\nsome local idea now no longer to be explained. But when mentions of\nsimilar superstitions are collected among the St. Kilda islanders and\nthe boatmen of the Danube, among French and English sailors, and even\nout of Europe and among less civilized races, we cease to think of local\nfancies, but look for some widely accepted belief of the lower culture\nto account for such a state of things. The Hindu does not save a man\nfrom drowning in the sacred Ganges, and the islanders of the Malay\narchipelago share the cruel notion.[150] Of all people the rude\nKamchadals have the prohibition in the most remarkable form. They hold\nit a great fault, says Kracheninnikow, to save a drowning man; he who\ndelivers him will be drowned himself.[151] Steller\u2019s account is more\nextraordinary, and probably applies only to cases where the victim is\nactually drowning: he says that if a man fell by chance into the water,\nit was a great sin for him to get out, for as he had been destined to\ndrown he did wrong in not drowning, wherefore no one would let him into\nhis dwelling, nor speak to him, nor give him food or a wife, but he was\nreckoned for dead; and even when a man fell into the water while others\nwere standing by, far from helping him out, they would drown him by\nforce. Now these barbarians, it appears, avoided volcanoes because of\nthe spirits who live there and cook their food; for a like reason, they\nheld it a sin to bathe in hot springs; and they believed with fear in a\nfish-like spirit of the sea, whom they called Mitgk.[152] This\nspiritualistic belief among the Kamchadals is, no doubt, the key to\ntheir superstition as to rescuing drowning men. There is even to be\nfound in modern European superstition, not only the practice, but with\nit a lingering survival of its ancient spiritualistic significance. In\nBohemia, a recent account (1864) says that the fishermen do not venture\nto snatch a drowning man from the waters. They fear that the \u2018Waterman\u2019\n(i.e. water-demon) would take away their luck in fishing, and drown\nthemselves at the first opportunity.[153] This explanation of the\nprejudice against saving the water-spirit\u2019s victim may be confirmed by a\nmass of evidence from various districts of the world. Thus, in\ndiscussing the doctrine of sacrifice, it will appear that the usual\nmanner of making an offering to a well, river, lake, or sea, is simply\nto cast property, cattle, or men into the water, which personally or by\nits indwelling spirit takes possession of them.[154] That the accidental\ndrowning of a man is held to be such a seizure, savage and civilized\nfolk-lore show by many examples. Among the Sioux Indians, it is Unk-tahe\nthe water-monster that drowns his victims in flood or rapid;[155] in New\nZealand huge supernatural reptile-monsters, called Taniwha, live in\nriver-bends, and those who are drowned are said to be pulled under by\nthem;[156] the Siamese fears the Pn\u00fck or water-spirit that seizes\nbathers and drags them under to his dwelling;[157] in Slavonic lands it\nis Topielec (the ducker) by whom men are always drowned;[158] when some\none is drowned in Germany, people recollect the religion of their\nancestors, and say, \u2018The river-spirit claims his yearly sacrifice,\u2019 or,\nmore simply, \u2018The nix has taken him:\u2019[159]\u2014\n\n                   \u2018Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen,\n                     Am Ende Fischer und Kahn;\n                   Und das hat mit ihrem Singen\n                     Die Lorelei gethan.\u2019\n\nFrom this point of view it is obvious that to save a sinking man is to\nsnatch a victim from the very clutches of the water-spirit, a rash\ndefiance of deity which would hardly pass unavenged. In the civilized\nworld the rude old theological conception of drowning has long been\nsuperseded by physical explanation; and the prejudice against rescue\nfrom such a death may have now almost or altogether disappeared. But\narchaic ideas, drifted on into modern folk-lore and poetry, still bring\nto our view an apparent connexion between the primitive doctrine and the\nsurviving custom.\n\nAs the social development of the world goes on, the weightiest thoughts\nand actions may dwindle to mere survival. Original meaning dies out\ngradually, each generation leaves fewer and fewer to bear it in mind,\ntill it falls out of popular memory, and in after-days ethnography has\nto attempt, more or less successfully, to restore it by piecing together\nlines of isolated or forgotten facts. Children\u2019s sports, popular\nsayings, absurd customs, may be practically unimportant, but are not\nphilosophically insignificant, bearing as they do on some of the most\ninstructive phases of early culture. Ugly and cruel superstitions may\nprove to be relics of primitive barbarism, for in keeping up such Man is\nlike Shakespeare\u2019s fox,\n\n             \u2018Who, ne\u2019er so tame, so cherish\u2019d, and lock\u2019d up,\n             Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.\u2019\n\nFootnote 55:\n\n  Will. de Rubruquis in Pinkerton, vol. vii. pp. 46, 67, 132; Michie,\n  \u2018Siberian Overland Route,\u2019 p. 96.\n\nFootnote 56:\n\n  Ovid. Fast. v. 487. For modern Italy and France, see Ed\u00e9lestane du\n  M\u00e9ril, \u2018\u00c9tudes d\u2019Arch\u00e9ol.\u2019 p. 121.\n\nFootnote 57:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 (ed. by J. R. Logan), vol. ii. p. liv.\n\nFootnote 58:\n\n  Klemm, \u2018Cultur-Geschichte,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 209.\n\nFootnote 59:\n\n  Oldfield in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 266; Dumont d\u2019Urville, \u2018Voy.\n  de l\u2019Astrolabe,\u2019 vol. i. p. 411.\n\nFootnote 60:\n\n  Strutt, \u2018Sports and Pastimes,\u2019 book ii. chap. ii.\n\nFootnote 61:\n\n  Polack, \u2018New Zealanders,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 171.\n\nFootnote 62:\n\n  Polack, ibid.; Wilkes, \u2018U. S. Exp.\u2019 vol. i. p. 194. See the account of\n  the game of liagi in Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 339; and Yate,\n  \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 113.\n\nFootnote 63:\n\n  Petron. Arbitri Satir\u00e6 rec. B\u00fcchler, p. 64 (other readings are _bucc\u00e6_\n  or _bucco_).\n\nFootnote 64:\n\n  Compare Davis, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. i. p. 317; Wilkinson, Ancient\n  Egyptians, vol. i. p. 188; Facciolati, Lexicon, s.v. \u2018micare\u2019; &c.\n\nFootnote 65:\n\n  Jamieson, \u2018Dict. of Scottish Lang.\u2019 s.v.\n\nFootnote 66:\n\n  \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 p. 244, &c.; Grimm, \u2018Deutsche Myth.,\u2019 p.\n  573.\n\nFootnote 67:\n\n  Grimm, _ibid._, p. 1200.\n\nFootnote 68:\n\n  Halliwell, \u2018Popular Rhymes,\u2019 p. 112; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 812. Bastian,\n  \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 106. Johannis Philosophi Ozniensis Opera\n  (Aucher), Venice, 1834, pp. 78-89. \u2018Infantium sanguini similam\n  commiscentes illegitimam communionem deglutiunt; quo pacto porcorum\n  suos f\u0153tus immaniter vescentium exsuperant edacitatem. Quique illorum\n  cadavera super tecti culmen celantes, ac sursum oculis in c\u0153lum\n  defixis respicientes, jurant alieno verbo ac sensu: _Altissimus\n  novit._ Solem vero deprecari volentes, ajunt: _Solicule_, _Lucicule_;\n  atque a\u00ebreos, vagosque d\u00e6mones clam invocant, juxta Manich\u00e6orum\n  Simonisque incantatoris errores. Similiter et primum parientis f\u0153min\u00e6\n  puerum de manu in manum inter eos invicem projectum, quum pessim\u00e2\n  morte occiderint, illum, in cujus manu exspiraverit puer, ad primam\n  sect\u00e6 dignitatem provectum venerantur; atque per utriusque nomen\n  audent insane jurare; _Juro_, dicunt, _per unigenitum filium_: et\n  iterum: _Testem babeo tibi gloriam ejus, in cujus manum unigenitus\n  filius spiritum suum tradidit_.... Contra hos [the orthodox] audacter\n  evomere pr\u00e6sumunt impietatis su\u00e6 bilem, atque insanientes, ex mali\n  spiritus blasphemi\u00e2, _Sculpticolas_ vocant.\u2019\n\nFootnote 69:\n\n  Polack, vol. i. p. 270.\n\nFootnote 70:\n\n  Bosman, \u2018Guinese Kust,\u2019 letter x.; Eng. Trans. in Pinkerton, vol. xvi.\n  p. 399.\n\nFootnote 71:\n\n  Homer, Iliad, vii. 171; Pindar, Pyth. iv. 338.\n\nFootnote 72:\n\n  Tacit. Germania. 10.\n\nFootnote 73:\n\n  Smith\u2019s \u2018Dic. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.,\u2019 arts. \u2018oraculum,\u2019 \u2018sortes.\u2019\n\nFootnote 74:\n\n  Roberts, \u2018Oriental Illustrations,\u2019 p. 163.\n\nFootnote 75:\n\n  Gataker, pp. 91, 141; see Lecky, \u2018History of Rationalism,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  307.\n\nFootnote 76:\n\n  Jeremy Taylor, \u2018Ductor Dubitantium,\u2019 in Works, vol. xiv. p. 337.\n\nFootnote 77:\n\n  See Wuttke, \u2018Deutsche Volksaberglaube,\u2019 pp. 95, 115, 178.\n\nFootnote 78:\n\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Islands,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 239; Turner, \u2018Polynesia,\u2019 p.\n  214; Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p. 228. Compare Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p.\n  231.\n\nFootnote 79:\n\n  R. Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 pp. 206, 348, 387.\n\nFootnote 80:\n\n  Smith\u2019s Dic., art. \u2018talus.\u2019\n\nFootnote 81:\n\n  Brand, \u2018Popular Antiquities,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 412.\n\nFootnote 82:\n\n  D. & C. Livingstone, \u2018Exp. to Zambesi,\u2019 p. 51.\n\nFootnote 83:\n\n  Doolittle, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 108, 285-7; see 384; Bastian,\n  \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 76, 125.\n\nFootnote 84:\n\n  Smith\u2019s Dic., art. \u2018cottabos.\u2019\n\nFootnote 85:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018Deutsche Myth.\u2019 p. 222.\n\nFootnote 86:\n\n  Plin. viii. 54.\n\nFootnote 87:\n\n  From a letter of Mr. H. J. Stokes, Negapatam, to Mr. F. M. Jennings.\n  General details of the Couvade in \u2018Early History of Mankind.\u2019 p. 293.\n\nFootnote 88:\n\n  H\u00e2vam\u00e2l, 138.\n\nFootnote 89:\n\n  Jamieson, \u2018Scottish Dictionary,\u2019 s.v. \u2018coals\u2019; R. Hunt, \u2018Popular\n  Romances,\u2019 1st ser. p. 83.\n\nFootnote 90:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 131.\n\nFootnote 91:\n\n  Rochholz, \u2018Deutscher Glaube und Brauch,\u2019 vol. i. p. 120; R. Chambers,\n  \u2018Popular Rhymes of Scotland,\u2019 Miscellaneous; Grimm, pp. 969, 976;\n  Wuttke, p. 115.\n\nFootnote 92:\n\n  Mendes, \u2018Service for the First Nights of Passover,\u2019 London, 1862 (in\n  the Jewish interpretation the word _sbunra_,\u2014\u2018cat,\u2019 is compared with\n  _sbin\u00e2r_). Halliwell, \u2018Nursery Rhymes,\u2019 p. 288; \u2018Popular Rhymes,\u2019 p.\n  6.\n\nFootnote 93:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p. 110.\n\nFootnote 94:\n\n  Shortland, \u2018Traditions of N. Z.\u2019 p. 196.\n\nFootnote 95:\n\n  Casalis, \u2018\u00c9tudes sur la langue S\u00e9chuana.\u2019\n\nFootnote 96:\n\n  R. F. Burton, \u2018Wit and Wisdom from West Africa.\u2019 See also Waitz, vol.\n  ii. p. 245.\n\nFootnote 97:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Nursery Tales, &c. of Zulus,\u2019 vol. i. p. 364, &c.\n\nFootnote 98:\n\n  Casalis, \u2018Etudes sur la langue S\u00e9chuana,\u2019 p. 91; \u2018Basutos,\u2019 p. 337.\n\nFootnote 99:\n\n  Steere, \u2018Swahili Tales,\u2019 p. 418.\n\nFootnote 100:\n\n  Burton, \u2018Wit and Wisdom from West Africa,\u2019 p. 212.\n\nFootnote 101:\n\n  Turner, \u2018Polynesia,\u2019 p. 216. See Polack, \u2018New Zealanders,\u2019 vol. ii. p.\n  171.\n\nFootnote 102:\n\n  Sahagun, \u2018Historia de Nueva Espa\u00f1a,\u2019 in Kingsborough\u2019s \u2018Antiquities,\n  of Mexico,\u2019 vol. vii. p. 178.\n\nFootnote 103:\n\n  Grimm, p. 699.\n\nFootnote 104:\n\n  Diog. Laert. i. 91; Athenagoras. x, 451.\n\nFootnote 105:\n\n  Mannhardt\u2019s \u2018Zeitschr. f\u00fcr Deutsche Mythologie,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 2, &c.:\n\n                      \u2018N\u00f3g er forthun n\u00f6sg\u00e1s vaxin,\n                      Barngiorn su er bar b\u00fatimbr saman;\n                      Hlifthu henni halms bitsk\u00e1lmir,\n                      Th\u00f3 l\u00e1 drykkjar drynhr\u00f6nn yfir.\u2019\n\nFootnote 106:\n\n  See Grote, \u2018Hist. of Greece,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 5.\n\nFootnote 107:\n\n  Mannhardt\u2019s \u2018Zeitschr.\u2019 l.c.\n\nFootnote 108:\n\n  E. A. W. Zimmermann, \u2018Geographische Geschichte des Menschen,\u2019 &c.,\n  1778-83, vol. iii. See Professor Rolleston\u2019s Inaugural Address,\n  British Association, 1870.\n\nFootnote 109:\n\n  Earl of Chesterfield, \u2018Letters to his Son,\u2019 vol. ii. No. lxviii.\n\nFootnote 110:\n\n  See Hylten-Cavallius, \u2018W\u00e4rend och Wirdarne,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 161-70 Grimm,\n  pp. 52-5, 1201; Brand, vol. ii. pp. 314, 325, &c.\n\nFootnote 111:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Religion of Amazulu,\u2019 pp. 64, 222-5, 263.\n\nFootnote 112:\n\n  Godignus, \u2018Vita Patris Gonzali Sylveri\u00e6.\u2019 Col. Agripp. 1616; lib. ii.\n  c. x.\n\nFootnote 113:\n\n  Bosman, \u2018Guinea,\u2019 letter xviii. in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 478.\n\nFootnote 114:\n\n  Burton, \u2018Wit and Wisdom from West Africa,\u2019 p. 373.\n\nFootnote 115:\n\n  Shortland, \u2018Trads. of New Zealand,\u2019 p. 131.\n\nFootnote 116:\n\n  Turner, \u2018Polynesia,\u2019 p. 348; see also Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  250.\n\nFootnote 117:\n\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol. i. p. 456.\n\nFootnote 118:\n\n  Garcilaso de la Vega, \u2018Hist. de la Florida,\u2019 vol. iii. ch. xli.\n\nFootnote 119:\n\n  Among dissertations on the subject, see especially Sir Thos. Browne\n  \u2018Pseudodoxia Epidemica\u2019 (Vulgar Errors), book iv. chap. ix.; Brand\n  \u2018Popular Antiquities,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 119, &c.; R. G. Haliburton, \u2018New\n  Materials for the History of Man.\u2019 Halifax, N. S. 1863; \u2018Encyclop\u00e6dia\n  Britannica,\u2019 (5th ed.) art. \u2018sneezing,\u2019 Wernsdorf, \u2018De Ritu\n  Sternutantibus bene precandi.\u2019 Leipzig, 1741; see also Grimm, D. M. p.\n  1070, note.\n\nFootnote 120:\n\n  Homer, Odyss. xvii. 541.\n\nFootnote 121:\n\n  Xenophon, Anabasis, iii. 2, 9.\n\nFootnote 122:\n\n  Aristot. Problem. xxxiii. 7.\n\nFootnote 123:\n\n  Anthologia Gr\u00e6ca, Brunck, vol. iii. p. 95.\n\nFootnote 124:\n\n  Petron. Arb. Sat. 98.\n\nFootnote 125:\n\n  Plin. xxviii. 5.\n\nFootnote 126:\n\n  Noel, \u2018Dic. des Origines;\u2019 Migne, \u2018Dic. des Superstitions,\u2019 &c.;\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 129.\n\nFootnote 127:\n\n  Ward, \u2018Hindoos,\u2019 vol. i. p. 142; Dubois, \u2018Peuples de l\u2019Inde,\u2019 vol. i.\n  p. 465; Sleeman, \u2018Ramaseeana,\u2019 p. 120.\n\nFootnote 128:\n\n  Buxtorf, \u2018Lexicon Chaldaicum;\u2019 Tendlau, \u2018Sprichw\u00f6rter, &c.\n  Deutsch-J\u00fcdischer Vorzeit.\u2019 Frankf. a. M., 1860, p. 142.\n\nFootnote 129:\n\n  Lane, \u2018Modern Egyptians,\u2019 vol. i. p. 282. See Grant, in \u2018Tr. Eth.\n  Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 90.\n\nFootnote 130:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 1070, 1110.\n\nFootnote 131:\n\n  \u2018Manuel des Pecch\u00e9s,\u2019 in Wedgwood, \u2018Dic. English Etymology,\u2019 s.v.,\n  \u2018wassail.\u2019\n\nFootnote 132:\n\n  Brand, vol. iii. p. 126.\n\nFootnote 133:\n\n  Callaway, p. 263.\n\nFootnote 134:\n\n  Ward, l.c.\n\nFootnote 135:\n\n  \u2018Pend-Nameh,\u2019 tr. de Sacy, ch. lxiii.; Maury, \u2018Magie,\u2019 &c., p. 302;\n  Lane, l.c.\n\nFootnote 136:\n\n  G. Brecher, \u2018Das Transcendentale im Talmud,\u2019 p. 168; Joseph. Ant. Jud.\n  viii. 2, 5.\n\nFootnote 137:\n\n  Migne, \u2018Dic. des H\u00e9r\u00e9sies,\u2019 s.v.\n\nFootnote 138:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 115, 322.\n\nFootnote 139:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Deutsche Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 137.\n\nFootnote 140:\n\n  Haliburton, op. cit.\n\nFootnote 141:\n\n  Powell and Magnussen, \u2018Legends of Iceland,\u2019 2nd ser. p. 448.\n\nFootnote 142:\n\n  The cases in which a sneeze is interpreted under special conditions,\n  as with reference to right and left, early morning, &c. (see Plutarch,\n  De Genio Socratis, &c.), are not considered here, as they belong to\n  ordinary omen-divination.\n\nFootnote 143:\n\n  W. Scott, \u2018Minstrelsy of Scottish Border;\u2019 Forbes Leslie, \u2018Early Races\n  of Scotland,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 194, 487; Grimm, \u2018Deutsche Mythologie,\u2019 pp.\n  972, 1095; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 92, 407, vol. iii. pp. 105,\n  112; Bowring, \u2018Servian Popular Poetry,\u2019 p. 64. A review of the First\n  Edition of the present work in \u2018Nature,\u2019 June 15, 1871, contains the\n  following:\u2014\u2018It is not, for example, many years since the present Lord\n  Leigh was accused of having built an obnoxious person\u2014one account, if\n  we remember right, said eight obnoxious persons\u2014into the foundation of\n  a bridge at Stoneleigh. Of course so preposterous a charge carried on\n  its face its own sufficient refutation; but the fact that it was\n  brought at all is a singular instance of the almost incredible\n  vitality of old traditions.\u2019\n\nFootnote 144:\n\n  Waitz, vol. ii. p. 197.\n\nFootnote 145:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 346; Tyerman and Bennet, vol. ii. p.\n  39.\n\nFootnote 146:\n\n  St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. p. 46; see Bastian, vol. ii. p. 407. I\n  am indebted to Mr. R. K. Douglas for a perfect example of one meaning\n  of the foundation-sacrifice, from the Chinese book, \u2018Y\u016bh hea ke\u2019\n  (\u2018Jewelled Casket of Divination\u2019): \u2018Before beginning to build, the\n  workmen should sacrifice to the gods of the neighbourhood, of the\n  earth and wood. Should the carpenters be very apprehensive of the\n  building falling, they, when fixing a post, should take something\n  living and put it beneath, and lower the post on it, and to liberate\n  [the evil influences] they should strike the post with an axe and\n  repeat\u2014\n\n                         \u201cIt is well, it is well,\n                         May those who live within\n                         Be ever warm and well fed.\u201d\u2019\n\nFootnote 147:\n\n  Caron, \u2018Japan,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 623.\n\nFootnote 148:\n\n  F. Mason, \u2018Burmah,\u2019 p. 100; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 193,\n  214; vol. ii. pp. 91, 270; vol. iii. p. 16; Roberts, \u2018Oriental\n  Illustrations,\u2019 p. 283.\n\nFootnote 149:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 107. A modern Arnaut story is given by\n  Prof. Liebrecht in \u2018Philologus,\u2019 vol. xxiii. (1865), p. 682.\n\nFootnote 150:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 210; Ward, \u2018Hindoos,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 318.\n\nFootnote 151:\n\n  Kracheninnikow, \u2018Descr. du Kamchatka, Voy. en Sib\u00e9rie,\u2019 vol. iii. p.\n  72.\n\nFootnote 152:\n\n  Steller, \u2018Kamtschatka,\u2019 pp. 265, 274.\n\nFootnote 153:\n\n  J. V. Grohmann, \u2018Aberglauben und Gebr\u00e4uche aus B\u00f6hmen,\u2019 p. 12.\n\nFootnote 154:\n\n  Chap. XVIII.\n\nFootnote 155:\n\n  Eastman, \u2018Dacotah,\u2019 pp. 118, 125.\n\nFootnote 156:\n\n  R. Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 48.\n\nFootnote 157:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 34.\n\nFootnote 158:\n\n  Hanusch, \u2018Wissenschaft des Slawischen Mythus,\u2019 p. 299.\n\nFootnote 159:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018Deutsche Myth,\u2019 p. 462.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n                   SURVIVAL IN CULTURE (_continued_).\n\n    Occult Sciences\u2014Magical powers attributed by higher to lower\n    races\u2014Magical processes based on Association of Ideas\u2014Omens\u2014Augury,\n    &c.\u2014Oneiromancy\u2014Haruspication, Scapulimancy, Chiromancy,\n    &c.\u2014Cartomancy, &c.\u2014Rhabdomancy, Dactyliomancy, Coscinomancy,\n    &c.\u2014Astrology\u2014Intellectual conditions accounting for the persistence\n    of Magic\u2014Survival passes into Revival\u2014Witchcraft, originating in\n    savage culture, continues in barbaric civilization; its decline in\n    early medi\u00e6val Europe followed by revival; its practices and\n    counter-practices belong to earlier culture\u2014Spiritualism has its\n    source in early stages of culture, in close connexion with\n    witchcraft\u2014Spirit-rapping and Spirit-writing\u2014Rising in the\n    air\u2014Performances of tied mediums\u2014Practical bearing of the study of\n    Survival.\n\n\nIn examining the survival of opinions in the midst of conditions of\nsociety becoming gradually estranged from them, and tending at last to\nsuppress them altogether, much may be learnt from the history of one of\nthe most pernicious delusions that ever vexed mankind, the belief in\nMagic. Looking at Occult Science from this ethnographic point of view, I\nshall instance some of its branches as illustrating the course of\nintellectual culture. Its place in history is briefly this. It belongs\nin its main principle to the lowest known stages of civilization, and\nthe lower races, who have not partaken largely of the education of the\nworld, still maintain it in vigour. From this level it may be traced\nupward, much of the savage art holding its place substantially\nunchanged, and many new practices being in course of time developed,\nwhile both the older and newer developments have lasted on more or less\namong modern cultured nations. But during the ages in which progressive\nraces have been learning to submit their opinions to closer and closer\nexperimental tests, occult science has been breaking down into the\ncondition of a survival, in which state we mostly find it among\nourselves.\n\nThe modern educated world, rejecting occult science as a contemptible\nsuperstition, has practically committed itself to the opinion that magic\nbelongs to a lower level of civilization. It is very instructive to find\nthe soundness of this judgment undesignedly confirmed by nations whose\neducation has not advanced far enough to destroy their belief in magic\nitself. In any country an isolated or outlying race, the lingering\nsurvivor of an older nationality, is liable to the reputation of\nsorcery. It is thus with the Lavas of Burma, supposed to be the\nbroken-down remains of an ancient cultured race, and dreaded as\nman-tigers;[160] and with the Budas of Abyssinia, who are at once the\nsmiths and potters, sorcerers and were-wolves, of their district.[161]\nBut the usual and suggestive state of things is that nations who believe\nwith the sincerest terror in the reality of the magic art, at the same\ntime cannot shut their eyes to the fact that it more essentially belongs\nto, and is more thoroughly at home among, races less civilized than\nthemselves. The Malays of the Peninsula, who have adopted Mohammedan\nreligion and civilization, have this idea of the lower tribes of the\nland, tribes more or less of their own race, but who have remained in\ntheir early savage condition. The Malays have enchanters of their own,\nbut consider them inferior to the sorcerers or poyangs belonging to the\nrude Mintira; to these they will resort for the cure of diseases and the\nworking of misfortune and death to their enemies. It is, in fact, the\nbest protection the Mintira have against their stronger Malay\nneighbours, that these are careful not to offend them for fear of their\npowers of magical revenge. The Jakuns, again, are a rude and wild race,\nwhom the Malays despise as infidels and little higher than animals, but\nwhom at the same time they fear extremely. To the Malay the Jakun seems\na supernatural being, skilled in divination, sorcery, and fascination,\nable to do evil or good according to his pleasure, whose blessing will\nbe followed by the most fortunate success, and his curse by the most\ndreadful consequences; he can turn towards the house of an enemy, at\nwhatever distance, and beat two sticks together till that enemy will\nfall sick and die; he is skilled in herbal physic; he has the power of\ncharming the fiercest wild beasts. Thus it is that the Malays, though\nthey despise the Jakuns, refrain, in many circumstances, from\nill-treating them.[162] In India, in long-past ages, the dominant Aryans\ndescribed the rude indigenes of the land by the epithets of \u2018possessed\nof magical powers,\u2019 \u2018changing their shape at will.\u2019[163] To this day,\nHindus settled in Chota-Nagpur and Singbhum firmly believe that the\nMundas have powers of witchcraft, whereby they can transform themselves\ninto tigers and other beasts of prey to devour their enemies, and can\nwitch away the lives of man and beast; it is to the wildest and most\nsavage of the tribe that such powers are generally ascribed.[164] In\nSouthern India, again, we hear in past times of Hinduized Dravidians,\nthe Sudras of Canara, living in fear of the demoniacal powers of the\nslave-caste below them.[165] In our own day, among Dravidian tribes of\nthe Nilagiri district, the Todas and Badagas are in mortal dread of the\nKurumbas, despised and wretched forest outcasts, but gifted, it is\nbelieved, with powers of destroying men and animals and property by\nwitchcraft.[166] Northern Europe brings the like contrast sharply into\nview. The Finns and Lapps, whose low Tatar barbarism was characterized\nby sorcery such as flourishes still among their Siberian kinsfolk, were\naccordingly objects of superstitious fear to their Scandinavian\nneighbours and oppressors. In the middle ages the name of Finn was, as\nit still remains among sea-faring men, equivalent to that of sorcerer,\nwhile Lapland witches had a European celebrity as practitioners of the\nblack art. Ages after the Finns had risen in the social scale, the Lapps\nretained much of their old half-savage habit of life, and with it\nnaturally their witchcraft, so that even the magic-gifted Finns revered\nthe occult powers of a people more barbarous than themselves. R\u00fchs\nwrites thus early in the last century: \u2018There are still sorcerers in\nFinland, but the skilfullest of them believe that the Lapps far excel\nthem; of a well-experienced magician they say, \u201cThat is quite a Lapp,\u201d\nand they journey to Lapland for such knowledge.\u2019[167] All this is of a\npiece with the survival of such ideas among the ignorant elsewhere in\nthe civilized world. Many a white man in the West Indies and Africa\ndreads the incantations of the Obi-man, and Europe ascribes powers of\nsorcery to despised outcast \u2018races maudites,\u2019 Gypsies and Cagots. To\nturn from nations to sects, the attitude of Protestants to Catholics in\nthis matter is instructive. It was remarked in Scotland: \u2018There is one\nopinion which many of them entertain, ... that a popish priest can cast\nout devils and cure madness, and that the Presbyterian clergy have no\nsuch power.\u2019 So Bourne says of the Church of England clergy, that the\nvulgar think them no conjurers, and say none can lay spirits but popish\npriests.[168] These accounts are not recent, but in Germany the same\nstate of things appears to exist still. Protestants get the aid of\nCatholic priests and monks to help them against witchcraft, to lay\nghosts, consecrate herbs, and discover thieves;[169] thus with\nunconscious irony judging the relation of Rome toward modern\ncivilization.\n\nThe principal key to the understanding of Occult Science is to consider\nit as based on the Association of Ideas, a faculty which lies at the\nvery foundation of human reason, but in no small degree of human\nunreason also. Man, as yet in a low intellectual condition, having come\nto associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be\nconnected in fact, proceeded erroneously to invert this action, and to\nconclude that association in thought must involve similar connexion in\nreality. He thus attempted to discover, to foretell, and to cause events\nby means of processes which we can now see to have only an ideal\nsignificance. By a vast mass of evidence from savage, barbaric, and\ncivilized life, magic arts which have resulted from thus mistaking an\nideal for a real connexion, may be clearly traced from the lower culture\nwhich they are of, to the higher culture which they are in.[170] Such\nare the practices whereby a distant person is to be affected by acting\non something closely associated with him\u2014his property, clothes he has\nworn, and above all cuttings of his hair and nails. Not only do savages\nhigh and low like the Australians and Polynesians, and barbarians like\nthe nations of Guinea, live in deadly terror of this spiteful craft\u2014not\nonly have the Parsis their sacred ritual prescribed for burying their\ncut hair and nails, lest demons and sorcerers should do mischief with\nthem, but the fear of leaving such clippings and parings about lest\ntheir former owner should be harmed through them, has by no means died\nout of European folk-lore, and the German peasant, during the days\nbetween his child\u2019s birth and baptism, objects to lend anything out of\nthe house, lest witchcraft should be worked through it on the yet\nunconsecrated baby.[171] As the negro fetish-man, when his patient does\nnot come in person, can divine by means of his dirty cloth or cap\ninstead,[172] so the modern clairvoyant professes to feel\nsympathetically the sensations of a distant person, if communication be\nmade through a lock of his hair or any object that has been in contact\nwith him.[173] The simple idea of joining two objects with a cord,\ntaking for granted that this communication will establish connexion or\ncarry influence, has been worked out in various ways in the world. In\nAustralia, the native doctor fastens one end of a string to the ailing\npart of the patient\u2019s body, and by sucking at the other end pretends to\ndraw out blood for his relief.[174] In Orissa, the Jeypore witch lets\ndown a ball of thread through her enemy\u2019s roof to reach his body, that\nby putting the other end in her own mouth she may suck his blood.[175]\nWhen a reindeer is sacrificed at a sick Ostyak\u2019s tent door, the patient\nholds in his hand a cord attached to the victim offered for his\nbenefit.[176] Greek history shows a similar idea, when the citizens of\nEphesus carried a rope seven furlongs from their walls to the temple of\nArtemis, thus to place themselves under her safeguard against the attack\nof Cr\u0153sus; and in the yet more striking story of the Kylonians, who tied\na cord to the statue of the goddess when they quitted the asylum, and\nclung to it for protection as they crossed unhallowed ground; but by\nill-fate the cord of safety broke and they were mercilessly put to\ndeath.[177] And in our own day, Buddhist priests in solemn ceremony put\nthemselves in communication with a sacred relic, by each taking hold of\na long thread fastened near it and around the temple.[178]\n\nMagical arts in which the connexion is that of mere analogy or symbolism\nare endlessly numerous throughout the course of civilization. Their\ncommon theory may be readily made out from a few typical cases, and\nthence applied confidently to the general mass. The Australian will\nobserve the track of an insect near a grave, to ascertain the direction\nwhere the sorcerer is to be found, by whose craft the man died.[179] The\nZulu may be seen chewing a bit of wood, in order, by this symbolic act,\nto soften the heart of the man he wants to buy oxen from, or of the\nwoman he wants for a wife.[180] The Obi-man of West Africa makes his\npacket of grave-dust, blood, and bones, that this suggestive\nrepresentation of death may bring his enemy to the grave.[181] The Khond\nsets up the iron arrow of the War-god in a basket of rice, and judges\nfrom its standing upright that war must be kept up also, or from its\nfalling that the quarrel may be let fall too; and when he tortures human\nvictims sacrificed to the Earth-goddess, he rejoices to see them shed\nplentiful tears, which betoken copious showers to fall upon his\nland.[182] These are fair examples of the symbolic magic of the lower\nraces, and they are fully rivalled in superstitions which still hold\ntheir ground in Europe. With quaint simplicity, the German cottager\ndeclares that if a dog howls looking downward, it portends a death; but\nif upward, then a recovery from sickness.[183] Locks must be opened and\nbolts drawn in a dying man\u2019s house, that his soul may not be held\nfast.[184] The Hessian lad thinks that he may escape the conscription by\ncarrying a baby-girl\u2019s cap in his pocket\u2014a symbolic way of repudiating\nmanhood.[185] Modern Servians, dancing and singing, lead about a little\ngirl dressed in leaves and flowers, and pour bowls of water over her to\nmake the rain come.[186] Sailors becalmed will sometimes whistle for a\nwind; but in other weather they hate whistling at sea, which raises a\nwhistling gale.[187] Fish, says the Cornishman, should be eaten from the\ntail towards the head, to bring the other fishes\u2019 heads towards the\nshore, for eating them the wrong way turns them from the coast.[188] He\nwho has cut himself should rub the knife with fat, and as it dries, the\nwound will heal; this is a lingering survival from days when recipes for\nsympathetic ointment were to be found in the Pharmacop\u0153ia.[189] Fanciful\nas these notions are, it should be borne in mind that they come fairly\nunder definite mental law, depending as they do on a principle of ideal\nassociation, of which we can quite understand the mental action, though\nwe deny its practical results. The clever Lord Chesterfield, too clever\nto understand folly, may again be cited to prove this. He relates in one\nof his letters that the king had been ill, and that people generally\nexpected the illness to be fatal, because the oldest lion in the Tower,\nabout the king\u2019s age, had just died. \u2018So wild and capricious is the\nhuman mind,\u2019 he exclaims, by way of comment. But indeed the thought was\nneither wild nor capricious, it was simply such an argument from analogy\nas the educated world has at length painfully learnt to be worthless;\nbut which, it is not too much to declare, would to this day carry\nconsiderable weight to the minds of four-fifths of the human race.\n\nA glance at those magical arts which have been systematized into\npseudo-sciences, shows the same underlying principle. The art of taking\nomens from seeing and meeting animals, which includes augury, is\nfamiliar to such savages as the Tupis of Brazil[190] and the Dayaks of\nBorneo,[191] and extends upward through classic civilization. The Maoris\nmay give a sample of the character of its rules: they hold it unlucky if\nan owl hoots during a consultation, but a council of war is encouraged\nby prospect of victory when a hawk flies overhead; a flight of birds to\nthe right of the war-sacrifice is propitious if the villages of the\ntribe are in that quarter, but if the omen is in the enemy\u2019s direction\nthe war will be given up.[192] Compare these with the Tatar rules, and\nit is obvious that similar thoughts lie at the source of both. Here a\ncertain little owl\u2019s cry is a sound of terror, although there is a white\nowl which is lucky; but of all birds the white falcon is most prophetic,\nand the Kalmuk bows his thanks for the good omen when one flies by on\nthe right, but seeing one on the left turns away his face and expects\ncalamity.[193] So to the negro of Old Calabar, the cry of the great\nkingfisher bodes good or evil, according as it is heard on the right or\nleft.[194] Here we have the obvious symbolism of the right and left\nhand, the foreboding of ill from the owl\u2019s doleful note, and the\nsuggestion of victory from the fierce swooping hawk, a thought which in\nold Europe made the bird of prey the warrior\u2019s omen of conquest. Meaning\nof the same kind appears in the \u2018Angang,\u2019 the omens taken from meeting\nanimals and people, especially on first going out in the morning, as\nwhen the ancient Slaves held meeting a sick man or an old woman to bode\nill-luck. Any one who takes the trouble to go into this subject in\ndetail, and to study the classic, medi\u00e6val, and oriental codes of rules,\nwill find that the principle of direct symbolism still accounts for a\nfair proportion of them, though the rest may have lost their early\nsignificance, or may have been originally due to some other reason, or\nmay have been arbitrarily invented (as a considerable proportion of such\ndevices must necessarily be) to fill up the gaps in the system. It is\nstill plain to us why the omen of the crow should be different on the\nright or left hand, why a vulture should mean rapacity, a stork concord,\na pelican piety, an ass labour, why the fierce conquering wolf should be\na good omen, and the timid hare a bad one, why bees, types of an\nobedient nation, should be lucky to a king, while flies, returning\nhowever often they are driven off, should be signs of importunity and\nimpudence.[195] And as to the general principle that animals are ominous\nto those who meet them, the German peasant who says a flock of sheep is\nlucky but a herd of swine unlucky to meet, and the Cornish miner who\nturns away in horror when he meets an old woman or a rabbit on his way\nto the pit\u2019s mouth, are to this day keeping up relics of early savagery\nas genuine as any flint implement dug out of a tumulus.\n\nThe doctrine of dreams, attributed as they are by the lower and\nmiddle races to spiritual intercourse, belongs in so far rather to\nreligion than to magic. But oneiromancy, the art of taking omens\nfrom dreams by analogical interpretation, has its place here. Of the\nleading principle of such mystical explanation, no better types\ncould be chosen than the details and interpretations of Joseph\u2019s\ndreams (Genesis xxxvii., xl., xli.), of the sheaves and the sun and\nmoon and eleven stars, of the vine and the basket of meats, of the\nlean and fat kine, and the thin and full corn-ears. Oneiromancy,\nthus symbolically interpreting the things seen in dreams, is not\nunknown to the lower races. A whole Australian tribe has been known\nto decamp because one of them dreamt of a certain kind of owl, which\ndream the wise men declared to forebode an attack from a certain\nother tribe.[196] The Kamchadals, whose minds ran much on dreams,\nhad special interpretations of some; thus to dream of lice or dogs\nbetokened a visit of Russian travellers, &c.[197] The Zulus,\nexperience having taught them the fallacy of expecting direct\nfulfilment of dreams, have in some cases tried to mend matters by\nrushing to the other extreme. If they dream of a sick man that he is\ndead, and they see the earth poured into the grave, and hear the\nfuneral lamentation, and see all his things destroyed, then they\nsay, \u2018Because we have dreamt of his death he will not die.\u2019 But if\nthey dream of a wedding-dance, it is a sign of a funeral. So the\nMaoris hold that a kinsman dreamt of as dying will recover, but to\nsee him well is a sign of death.[198] Both races thus work out, by\nthe same crooked logic that guided our own ancestors, the axiom that\n\u2018dreams go by contraries.\u2019 It could not be expected, in looking over\nthe long lists of precepts of classic, oriental, and modern popular\ndream-interpretation, to detect the original sense of all their\nreadings. Many must turn on allusions intelligible at the time, but\nnow obscure. The Moslem dream-interpretation of eggs as concerning\nwomen, because of a saying of Mohammed about women being like an egg\nhidden in a nest, is an example which will serve as well as a score\nto show how dream-rules may turn on far-fetched ideas, not to be\nrecognized unless the key happens to have been preserved. Many rules\nmust have been taken at random to fill up lists of omens, and of\ncontingencies to match them. Why should a dream of roasting meat\nshow the dreamer to be a back-biter, or laughter in sleep presage\ndifficult circumstances, or a dream of playing on the clavicord the\ndeath of relatives? But the other side of the matter, the still\napparent nonsensical rationality of so many dream omens, is much\nmore remarkable. It can only be considered that the same symbolism\nthat lay at the root of the whole delusion, favoured the keeping up\nand new making of such rules as carried obvious meaning. Take the\nMoslem ideas that it is a good omen to dream of something white or\ngreen, or of water, but bad to dream of black or red, or of fire;\nthat a palm-tree indicates an Arab, and a peacock a king; that he\nwho dreams of devouring the stars will live free at some great man\u2019s\ntable. Take the classic rules as in the \u2018Oneirocritica\u2019 of\nArtemidorus, and pass on through the medi\u00e6val treatises down to such\na dream-dictionary as servant-maids still buy in penny chap-books at\nthe fair, and it will be seen that the ancient rules still hold\ntheir places to a remarkable extent, while half the mass of precepts\nstill show their original mystic significance, mostly direct, but\noccasionally according to the rule of contraries. An offensive odour\nsignifies annoyance; to wash the hands denotes release from\nanxieties; to embrace one\u2019s best beloved is very fortunate; to have\none\u2019s feet cut off prevents a journey; to weep in sleep is a sign of\njoy; he who dreams he hath lost a tooth shall lose a friend; and he\nthat dreams that a rib is taken out of his side shall ere long see\nthe death of his wife; to follow bees, betokens gain; to be married\nsignifies that some of your kinsfolk are dead; if one sees many\nfowls together, that shall be jealousy and chiding; if a snake\npursue him, let him be on his guard against evil women; to dream of\ndeath, denotes happiness and long life; to dream of swimming and\nwading in the water is good, so that the head be kept above water;\nto dream of crossing a bridge, denotes you will leave a good\nsituation to seek a better; to dream you see a dragon is a sign that\nyou shall see some great lord your master, or a magistrate.[199]\n\nHaruspication belongs, among the lower races, especially to the Malays\nand Polynesians,[200] and to various Asiatic tribes.[201] It is\nmentioned as practised in Peru under the Incas.[202] Captain Burton\u2019s\naccount from Central Africa perhaps fairly displays its symbolic\nprinciple. He describes the mganga or sorcerer taking an ordeal by\nkilling and splitting a fowl and inspecting its inside: if blackness or\nblemish appears about the wings, it denotes the treachery of children\nand kinsmen; the backbone convicts the mother and grandmother; the tail\nshows that the criminal is the wife, &c.[203] In ancient Rome, where the\nart held so great a place in public affairs, the same sort of\ninterpretation was usual, as witness the omen of Augustus, where the\nlivers of the victims were found folded, and the diviners prophesied him\naccordingly a doubled empire.[204] Since then, haruspication has died\nout more completely than almost any magical rite, yet even now a\ncharacteristic relic of it may be noticed in Brandenburg; when a pig is\nkilled and the spleen is found turned over, there will be another\noverthrow, namely a death in the family that year.[205] With\nharuspication may be classed the art of divining by bones, as where\nNorth American Indians would put in the fire a certain flat bone of a\nporcupine, and judge from its colour if the porcupine hunt would be\nsuccessful.[206] The principal art of this kind is divination by a\nshoulder-blade, technically called scapulimancy or omoplatoscopy. This\nart, related to the old Chinese divination by the cracks of a\ntortoise-shell on the fire, is especially found in vogue in Tartary. Its\nsimple symbolism is well shown in the elaborate account with diagrams\ngiven by Pallas. The shoulder-blade is put on the fire till it cracks in\nvarious directions, and then a long split lengthwise is reckoned as the\n\u2018way of life,\u2019 while cross-cracks on the right and left stand for\ndifferent kinds and degrees of good and evil fortune; or if the omen is\nonly taken as to some special event, then lengthwise splits mean going\non well, but crosswise ones stand for hindrance, white marks portend\nmuch snow, black ones a mild winter, &c.[207] To find this quaint art\nlasting on into modern times in Europe, we can hardly go to a better\nplace than our own country; a proper English term for it is \u2018reading the\nspeal-bone\u2019 (_speal_ = _espaule_). In Ireland, Camden describes the\nlooking through the blade-bone of a sheep, to find a dark spot which\nforetells a death, and Drayton thus commemorates the art in his\nPolyolbion:\u2014\n\n      \u2018By th\u2019 shoulder of a ram from off the right side par\u2019d,\n      Which usually they boile, the spade-bone being bar\u2019d,\n      Which when the wizard takes, and gazing therupon\n      Things long to come foreshowes, as things done long agone.\u2019[208]\n\nChiromancy, or palmistry, seems much like this, though it is also mixed\nup with astrology. It flourished in ancient Greece and Italy as it still\ndoes in India, where to say, \u2018It is written on the palms of my hands,\u2019\nis a usual way of expressing a sense of inevitable fate. Chiromancy\ntraces in the markings of the palm a line of fortune and a line of life,\nfinds proof of melancholy in the intersections on the saturnine mount,\npresages sorrow and death from black spots in the finger-nails, and at\nlast, having exhausted the powers of this childish symbolism, it\ncompletes its system by details of which the absurdity is no longer\nrelieved by even an ideal sense. The art has its modern votaries not\nmerely among Gypsy fortune-tellers, but in what is called \u2018good\nsociety.\u2019[209]\n\nIt may again and again thus be noticed in magic arts, that the\nassociation of ideas is obvious up to a certain point. Thus when the New\nZealand sorcerer took omens by the way his divining sticks (guided by\nspirits) fell, he quite naturally said it was a good omen if the stick\nrepresenting his own tribe fell on top of that representing the enemy,\nand vice vers\u00e2. Zulu diviners still work a similar process with their\nmagical pieces of stick, which rise to say yes and fall to say no, jump\nupon the head or stomach or other affected part of the patient\u2019s body to\nshow where his complaint is, and lie pointing towards the house of the\ndoctor who can cure him. So likewise, where a similar device was\npractised ages ago in the Old World, the responses were taken from\nstaves which (by the operation of demons) fell backward or forward, to\nthe right or left.[210] But when processes of this kind are developed to\ncomplexity, the system has, of course, to be completed by more arbitrary\narrangements. This is well shown in one of the divinatory arts mentioned\nin the last chapter for their connexion with games of chance. In\ncartomancy, the art of fortune-telling with packs of cards, there is a\nsort of nonsensical sense in such rules as that two queens mean\nfriendship and four mean chattering, or that the knave of hearts\nprophesies a brave young man who will come into the family to be useful,\nunless his purpose be reversed by his card being upside down. But of\ncourse the pack can only furnish a limited number of such comparatively\nrational interpretations, and the rest must be left to such arbitrary\nfancy as that the seven of diamonds means a prize in the lottery, and\nthe ten of the same suit an unexpected journey.[211]\n\nA remarkable group of divining instruments illustrates another\nprinciple. In South-East Asia, the Sgau Karens, at funeral feasts, hang\na bangle or metal ring by a thread over a brass basin, which the\nrelatives of the dead approach in succession and strike on the edge with\na bit of bamboo; when the one who was most beloved touches the basin,\nthe dead man\u2019s spirit responds by twisting and stretching the string\ntill it breaks and the ring falls into the cup, or at least till it\nrings against it.[212] Nearer Central Asia, in the north-east corner of\nIndia, among the Bodo and Dhimal, the professional exorcist has to find\nout what deity has entered into a patient\u2019s body to punish him for some\nimpiety by an attack of illness; this he discovers by setting thirteen\nleaves round him on the ground to represent the gods, and then holding a\npendulum attached to his thumb by a string, till the god in question is\npersuaded by invocation to declare himself, making the pendulum swing\ntowards his representative leaf.[213] These mystic arts (not to go into\nthe question how these tribes came to use them) are rude forms of the\nclassical dactyliomancy, of which so curious an account is given in the\ntrial of the conspirators Patricius and Hilarius, who worked it to find\nout who was to supplant the emperor Valens. A round table was marked at\nthe edge with the letters of the alphabet, and with prayers and mystic\nceremonies a ring was held suspended over it by a thread, and by\nswinging or stopping towards certain letters gave the responsive words\nof the oracle.[214] Dactyliomancy has dwindled in Europe to the art of\nfinding out what o\u2019clock it is by holding a ring hanging inside a\ntumbler by a thread, till, without conscious aid by the operator, it\nbegins to swing and strikes the hour. Father Schott, in his \u2018Physica\nCuriosa\u2019 (1662), refrains with commendable caution from ascribing this\nphenomenon universally to demoniac influence. It survives among\nourselves in child\u2019s play, and though we are \u2018no conjurers,\u2019 we may\nlearn something from the little instrument, which remarkably displays\nthe effects of insensible movement. The operator really gives slight\nimpulses till they accumulate to a considerable vibration, as in ringing\na church-bell by very gentle pulls exactly timed. That he does, though\nunconsciously, cause and direct the swings, may be shown by an attempt\nto work the instrument with the operator\u2019s eyes shut, which will be\nfound to fail, the directing power being lost. The action of the famous\ndivining-rod with its curiously versatile sensibility to water, ore,\ntreasure, and thieves, seems to belong partly to trickery by\nprofessional Dousterswivels, and partly to more or less conscious\ndirection by honester operators. It is still known in England, and in\nGermany they are apt to hide it in a baby\u2019s clothes, and so get it\nbaptized for greater efficiency.[215] To conclude this group of\ndivinatory instruments, chance or the operator\u2019s direction may determine\nthe action of one of the most familiar of classic and medi\u00e6val ordeals,\nthe so-called coscinomancy, or, as it is described in Hudibras, \u2018th\u2019\noracle of sieve and shears, that turns as certain as the spheres.\u2019 The\nsieve was held hanging by a thread, or by the points of a pair of shears\nstuck into its rim, and it would turn, or swing, or fall, at the mention\nof a thief\u2019s name, and give similar signs for other purposes. Of this\nancient rite, the Christian ordeal of the Bible and key, still in\nfrequent use, is a variation: the proper way to detect a thief by this\nis to read the 50th Psalm to the apparatus, and when it hears the verse,\n\u2018When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him,\u2019 it will turn\nto the culprit.[216]\n\nCount de Maistre, with his usual faculty of taking an argument up at the\nwrong end, tells us that judicial astrology no doubt hangs to truths of\nthe first order, which have been taken from us as useless or dangerous,\nor which we cannot recognize under their new forms.[217] A sober\nexamination of the subject may rather justify the contrary opinion, that\nit is on an error of the first order that astrology depends, the error\nof mistaking ideal analogy for real connexion. Astrology, in the\nimmensity of its delusive influence on mankind, and by the comparatively\nmodern period to which it remained an honoured branch of philosophy, may\nclaim the highest rank among the occult sciences. It scarcely belongs to\nvery low levels of civilization, although one of its fundamental\nconceptions, namely, that of the souls or animating intelligences of the\ncelestial bodies, is rooted in the depths of savage life. Yet the\nfollowing Maori specimen of astrological reasoning is as real an\nargument as could be found in Paracelsus or Agrippa, nor is there reason\nto doubt its being home-made. When the siege of a New Zealand \u2018pa\u2019 is\ngoing on, if Venus is near the moon, the natives naturally imagine the\ntwo as enemy and fortress; if the planet is above, the foe will have the\nupper hand; but if below, then the men of the soil will be able to\ndefend themselves.[218] Though the early history of astrology is\nobscure, its great development and elaborate systematization were\nundoubtedly the work of civilized nations of the ancient and medi\u00e6val\nworld. As might be well supposed, a great part of its precepts have lost\ntheir intelligible sense, or never had any, but the origin of many\nothers is still evident. To a considerable extent they rest on direct\nsymbolism. Such are the rules which connect the sun with gold, with the\nheliotrope and p\u00e6ony, with the cock which heralds day, with magnanimous\nanimals, such as the lion and bull; and the moon with silver, and the\nchanging cham\u00e6leon, and the palm-tree, which was considered to send out\na monthly shoot. Direct symbolism is plain in that main principle of the\ncalculation of nativities, the notion of the \u2018ascendant\u2019 in the\nhoroscope, which reckons the part of the heavens rising in the east at\nthe moment of a child\u2019s birth as being connected with the child itself,\nand prophetic of its future life.[219] It is an old story, that when two\nbrothers were once taken ill together, Hippokrates the physician\nconcluded from the coincidence that they were twins, but Poseidonios the\nastrologer considered rather that they were born under the same\nconstellation: we may add, that either argument would be thought\nreasonable by a savage. One of the most instructive astrological\ndoctrines which has kept its place in modern popular philosophy, is that\nof the sympathy of growing and declining nature with the waxing and\nwaning moon. Among classical precepts are these: to set eggs under the\nhen at new moon, but to root up trees when the moon is on the wane, and\nafter midday. The Lithuanian precept to wean boys on a waxing, but girls\non a waning moon, no doubt to make the boys sturdy and the girls slim\nand delicate, is a fair match for the Orkney islanders\u2019 objection to\nmarrying except with a growing moon, while some even wish for a flowing\ntide. The following lines, from Tusser\u2019s \u2018Five Hundred Points of\nHusbandry,\u2019 show neatly in a single case the two contrary lunar\ninfluences:\u2014\n\n           \u2018Sowe peason and beans in the wane of the moone\n           Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soone:\n           That they, with the planet, may rest and rise,\n           And flourish with bearing, most plentiful wise.\u2019[220]\n\nThe notion that the weather changes with the moon\u2019s quarterings is still\nheld with great vigour in England. Yet the meteorologists, with all\ntheir eagerness to catch at any rule which at all answers to facts,\nquite repudiate this one, which indeed appears to be simply a maxim\nbelonging to popular astrology. Just as the growth and dwindling of\nplants became associated with the moon\u2019s wax and wane, so changes of\nweather became associated with changes of the moon, while, by\nastrologer\u2019s logic, it did not matter whether the moon\u2019s change were\nreal, at new and full, or imaginary, at the intermediate quarters. That\neducated people to whom exact weather records are accessible should\nstill find satisfaction in the fanciful lunar rule, is an interesting\ncase of intellectual survival.\n\nIn such cases as these, the astrologer has at any rate a real analogy,\ndeceptive though it be, to base his rule upon. But most of his\npseudo-science seems to rest on even weaker and more arbitrary\nanalogies, not of things, but of names. Names of stars and\nconstellations, of signs denoting regions of the sky and periods of days\nand years, no matter how arbitrarily given, are materials which the\nastrologer can work upon, and bring into ideal connexion with mundane\nevents. That astronomers should have divided the sun\u2019s course into\nimaginary signs of the zodiac, was enough to originate astrological\nrules that these celestial signs have an actual effect on real earthly\nrams, bulls, crabs, lions, virgins. A child born under the sign of the\nLion will be courageous; but one born under the Crab will not go forward\nwell in life; one born under the Waterman is likely to be drowned, and\nso forth. Towards 1524, Europe was awaiting in an agony of prayerful\nterror a second deluge, prophesied for February in that year. As the\nfatal month drew nigh, dwellers by the waterside moved in crowds to the\nhills, some provided boats to save them, and the President Aurial, at\nToulouse, built himself a Noah\u2019s Ark. It was the great astrologer\nStoefler (the originator, it is said, of the weather-prophecies in our\nalmanacks) who foretold this cataclysm, and his argument has the\nadvantage of being still perfectly intelligible\u2014at the date in question,\nthree planets would be together in the aqueous sign of Pisces. Again,\nsimply because astronomers chose to distribute among the planets the\nnames of certain deities, the planets thereby acquired the characters of\ntheir divine namesakes. Thus it was that the planet Mercury became\nconnected with travel, trade, and theft, Venus with love and mirth, Mars\nwith war, Jupiter with power and \u2018joviality.\u2019 Throughout the East,\nastrology even now remains a science in full esteem. The condition of\nmedi\u00e6val Europe may still be perfectly realized by the traveller in\nPersia, where the Shah waits for days outside the walls of his capital\ntill the constellations allow him to enter, and where on the days\nappointed by the stars for letting blood, it literally flows in streams\nfrom the barbers\u2019 shops into the street. Professor Wuttke declares that\nthere are many districts in Germany where the child\u2019s horoscope is still\nregularly kept with the baptismal certificate in the family chest. We\nscarcely reach this pitch of conservatism in England, but I happen to\nmyself live within a mile of an astrologer, and I lately saw a grave\npaper on nativities, offered in all good faith to the British\nAssociation. The piles of \u2018Zadkiel\u2019s Almanack\u2019 in the bookseller\u2019s\nwindows in country towns about Christmas are a symptom how much yet\nremains to be done in popular education. As a specimen at once of the\nsurvival and of the meaning of astrologic reasoning, I cannot do better\nthan quote a passage from a book published in London in 1861, and\nentitled \u2018The Hand-Book of Astrology, by Zadkiel Tao-Sze.\u2019 At page 72 of\nhis first volume, the astrologer relates as follows: \u2018The Map of the\nheavens given at page 45 was drawn on the occasion of a young lady\nhaving been arrested on a charge of the murder of her infant brother.\nHaving read in a newspaper, at twenty-four minutes past noon on the 23rd\nJuly, 1860, that Miss C. K. had been arrested on a charge of the murder\nof her young brother, the author felt desirous to ascertain whether she\nwere guilty or not, and drew the map accordingly. Finding the moon in\nthe twelfth house, she clearly signifies the prisoner. The moon is in a\nmoveable sign, and moves in the twenty-four hours, 14\u00b0 17\u00b4. She is,\ntherefore, swift in motion. These things indicated that the prisoner\nwould be very speedily released. Then we find a moveable sign in the\ncusp of the twelfth, and its ruler, \u2640, in a moveable sign, a further\nindication of speedy release. Hence it was judged and declared to many\nfriends that the prisoner would be immediately released, which was the\nfact. We looked to see whether the prisoner were guilty of the deed or\nnot, and finding the Moon in Libra, a humane sign, and having just past\nthe \u26b9 aspect of the Sun and \u2643, both being on the M. C. we felt assured\nthat she was a humane, feeling, and honourable girl, and that it was\nquite impossible she could be guilty of any such atrocity. We declared\nher to be perfectly innocent, and as the Moon was so well aspected from\nthe tenth house, we declared that her honour would be very soon\nperfectly established.\u2019 Had the astrologer waited a few months longer,\nto have read the confession of the miserable Constance Kent, he would\nperhaps have put a different sense on his moveable signs, just balances,\nand sunny and jovial aspects. Nor would this be a difficult task, for\nthese fancies lend themselves to endless variety of new interpretation.\nAnd on such fancies and such interpretations, the great science of the\nstars has from first to last been based.\n\nLooking at the details here selected as fair samples of symbolic magic,\nwe may well ask the question, is there in the whole monstrous farrago no\ntruth or value whatever? It appears that there is practically none, and\nthat the world has been enthralled for ages by a blind belief in\nprocesses wholly irrelevant to their supposed results, and which might\nas well have been taken just the opposite way. Pliny justly saw in magic\na study worthy of his especial attention, \u2018for the very reason that,\nbeing the most fraudulent of arts, it had prevailed throughout the world\nand through so many ages\u2019 (eo ipso quod fraudulentissima artium plurimum\nin toto terrarum orbe plurimisque seculis valuit). If it be asked how\nsuch a system could have held its ground, not merely in independence but\nin defiance of its own facts, a fair answer does not seem hard to give.\nIn the first place, it must be borne in mind that occult science has not\nexisted entirely in its own strength. Futile as its arts may be, they\nare associated in practice with other proceedings by no means futile.\nWhat are passed off as sacred omens, are often really the cunning man\u2019s\nshrewd guesses at the past and future. Divination serves to the sorcerer\nas a mask for real inquest, as when the ordeal gives him invaluable\nopportunity of examining the guilty, whose trembling hands and\nequivocating speech betray at once their secret and their utter belief\nin his power of discerning it. Prophecy tends to fulfil itself, as where\nthe magician, by putting into a victim\u2019s mind the belief that fatal arts\nhave been practised against him, can slay him with this idea as with a\nmaterial weapon. Often priest as well as magician, he has the whole\npower of religion at his back; often a man in power, always an\nunscrupulous intriguer, he can work witchcraft and statecraft together,\nand make his left hand help his right. Often a doctor, he can aid his\nomens of life or death with remedy or poison, while what we still call\n\u2018conjurers\u2019 tricks\u2019 of sleight of hand have done much to keep up his\nsupernatural prestige. From the earliest known stages of civilization,\nprofessional magicians have existed, who live by their craft, and keep\nit alive. It has been said, that if somebody had endowed lecturers to\nteach that two sides of a triangle are together equal to the third, the\ndoctrine would have a respectable following among ourselves. At any\nrate, magic, with an influential profession interested in keeping it in\ncredit and power, did not depend for its existence on mere evidence.\n\nAnd in the second place, as to this evidence. Magic has not its origin\nin fraud, and seems seldom practised as an utter imposture. The sorcerer\ngenerally learns his time-honoured profession in good faith, and retains\nhis belief in it more or less from first to last; at once dupe and\ncheat, he combines the energy of a believer with the cunning of a\nhypocrite. Had occult science been simply framed for purposes of\ndeception, mere nonsense would have answered the purpose, whereas, what\nwe find is an elaborate and systematic pseudo-science. It is, in fact, a\nsincere but fallacious system of philosophy, evolved by the human\nintellect by processes still in great measure intelligible to our own\nminds, and it had thus an original standing-ground in the world. And\nthough the evidence of fact was dead against it, it was but lately and\ngradually that this evidence was brought fatally to bear. A general\nsurvey of the practical working of the system may be made somewhat thus.\nA large proportion of successful cases belong to natural means disguised\nas magic. Also, a certain proportion of cases must succeed by mere\nchance. By far the larger proportion, however, are what we should call\nfailures; but it is a part of the magician\u2019s profession to keep these\nfrom counting, and this he does with extraordinary resource of\nrhetorical shift and brazen impudence. He deals in ambiguous phrases,\nwhich give him three or four chances for one. He knows perfectly how to\nimpose difficult conditions, and to lay the blame of failure on their\nneglect. If you wish to make gold, the alchemist in Central Asia has a\nrecipe at your service, only, to use it, you must abstain three days\nfrom thinking of apes; just as our English folk-lore says, that if one\nof your eyelashes comes out, and you put it on your thumb, you will get\nanything you wish for, if you can only avoid thinking of foxes\u2019 tails at\nthe fatal moment. Again, if the wrong thing happens, the wizard has at\nleast a reason why. Has a daughter been born when he promised a son,\nthen it is some hostile practitioner who has turned the boy into a girl;\ndoes a tempest come just when he is making fine weather, then he calmly\ndemands a larger fee for stronger ceremonies, assuring his clients that\nthey may thank him as it is, for how much worse it would have been had\nhe not done what he did. And even setting aside all this accessory\ntrickery, if we look at honest but unscientific people practising occult\nscience in good faith, and face to face with facts, we shall see that\nthe failures which condemn it in our eyes carry comparatively little\nweight in theirs. Part escape under the elastic pretext of a \u2018little\nmore or less,\u2019 as the loser in the lottery consoles himself that his\nlucky number came within two of a prize, or the moon-observer points out\ntriumphantly that a change of weather has come within two or three days\nbefore or after a quarter, so that his convenient definition of near a\nmoon\u2019s quarter applies to four or six days out of every seven. Part\nescape through incapacity to appreciate negative evidence, which allows\none success to outweigh half-a-dozen failures. How few there are even\namong the educated classes now, who have taken in the drift of that\nmemorable passage in the beginning of the \u2018Novum Organum:\u2019\u2014\u2018The human\nunderstanding, when any proposition has been once laid down (either from\ngeneral admission and belief, or from the pleasure it affords), forces\neverything else to add fresh support and confirmation; and although most\ncogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet either does\nnot observe or despises them, or gets rid of and rejects them by some\ndistinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice\nthe authority of its first conclusions. It was well answered by him who\nwas shown in a temple the votive tablets suspended by such as had\nescaped the peril of shipwreck, and was pressed as to whether he would\nthen recognize the power of the gods, by an inquiry, \u201cBut where are the\nportraits of those who have perished in spite of their vows?\u201d\u2019[221]\n\nOn the whole, the survival of symbolic magic through the middle ages and\ninto our own times is an unsatisfactory, but not a mysterious fact. A\nonce-established opinion, however delusive, can hold its own from age to\nage, for belief can propagate itself without reference to its reasonable\norigin, as plants are propagated from slips without fresh raising from\nthe seed.\n\nThe history of survival in cases like those of the folk-lore and occult\narts which we have been considering, has for the most part been a\nhistory of dwindling and decay. As men\u2019s minds change in progressing\nculture, old customs and opinions fade gradually in a new and\nuncongenial atmosphere, or pass into states more congruous with the new\nlife around them. But this is so far from being a law without exception,\nthat a narrow view of history may often make it seem to be no law at\nall. For the stream of civilization winds and turns upon itself, and\nwhat seems the bright onward current of one age may in the next spin\nround in a whirling eddy, or spread into a dull and pestilential swamp.\nStudying with a wide view the course of human opinion, we may now and\nthen trace on from the very turning-point the change from passive\nsurvival into active revival. Some well-known belief or custom has for\ncenturies shown symptoms of decay, when we begin to see that the state\nof society, instead of stunting it, is favouring its new growth, and it\nbursts forth again with a vigour often as marvellous as it is unhealthy.\nAnd though the revival be not destined to hold on indefinitely, and\nthough when opinion turns again its ruin may be more merciless than\nbefore, yet it may last for ages, make its way into the inmost\nconstitution of society, and even become a very mark and characteristic\nof its time.\n\nWriters who desire to show that, with all our faults, we are wiser and\nbetter than our ancestors, dwell willingly on the history of witchcraft\nbetween the middle and modern ages. They can quote Martin Luther,\napropos of the witches who spoil the farmers\u2019 butter and eggs, \u2018I would\nhave no pity on these witches; I would burn them all.\u2019 They can show the\ngood Sir Matthew Hale hanging witches in Suffolk, on the authority of\nscripture and the consenting wisdom of all nations; and King James\npresiding at the torture of Dr. Fian for bringing a storm against the\nking\u2019s ship on its course from Denmark, by the aid of a fleet of witches\nin sieves, who carried out a christened cat to sea. In those dreadful\ndays, to be a blear-eyed wizened cripple was to be worth twenty\nshillings to a witch-finder; for a woman to have what this witch-finder\nwas pleased to call the devil\u2019s mark on her body was presumption for\njudicial sentence of death; and not to bleed or shed tears or sink in a\npond was torture first and then the stake. Reform of religion was no\ncure for the disease of men\u2019s minds, for in such things the Puritan was\nno worse than the Inquisitor, and no better. Papist and Protestant\nfought with one another, but both turned against that enemy of the human\nrace, the hag who had sold herself to Satan to ride upon a broomstick,\nand to suck children\u2019s blood, and to be for life and death of all\ncreatures the most wretched. But with new enlightenment there came in\nthe very teeth of law and authority a change in European opinion. Toward\nthe end of the seventeenth century the hideous superstition was breaking\ndown among ourselves; Richard Baxter, of the \u2018Saint\u2019s Rest,\u2019 strove with\nfanatic zeal to light again at home the witch-fires of New England, but\nhe strove in vain. Year by year the persecution of witches became more\nhateful to the educated classes, and though it died hard, it died at\nlast down to a vestige. In our days, when we read of a witch being burnt\nat Camargo in 1860, we point to Mexico as a country miserably in the\nrear of civilization. And if in England it still happens that village\nboors have to be tried at quarter-sessions for ill-using some poor old\nwoman, who they fancy has dried a cow or spoiled a turnip crop, we\ncomment on the tenacity with which the rustic mind clings to exploded\nfollies, and cry out for more schoolmasters.\n\nTrue as all this is, the ethnographer must go wider and deeper in his\nenquiry, to do his subject justly. The prevailing belief in witchcraft\nthat sat like a nightmare on public opinion from the 13th to the 17th\ncenturies, far from being itself a product of medi\u00e6valism, was a revival\nfrom the remote days of prim\u00e6val history. The disease that broke out\nafresh in Europe had been chronic among the lower races for how many\nages we cannot tell. Witchcraft is part and parcel of savage life. There\nare rude races of Australia and South America whose intense belief in it\nhas led them to declare that if men were never bewitched, and never\nkilled by violence, they would not die at all. Like the Australians, the\nAfricans will inquire of their dead what sorcerer slew them by his\nwicked arts, and when they have satisfied themselves of this, blood must\natone for blood. In West Africa, it has been boldly asserted that the\nbelief in witchcraft costs more lives than the slave trade ever did. In\nEast Africa, Captain Burton, a traveller apt to draw his social sketches\nin a few sharp lines, remarks that what with slavery and what with\nblack-magic, life is precarious among the Wakhutu, and \u2018no one,\nespecially in old age, is safe from being burnt at a day\u2019s notice;\u2019 and,\ntravelling in the country of the Wazaramo, he tells us of meeting every\nfew miles with heaps of ashes and charcoal, now and then such as seemed\nto have been a father and mother, with a little heap hard by that was a\nchild.[222] Even in districts of British India a state of mind ready to\nproduce horrors like these is well known to exist, and to be kept down\nless by persuasion than by main force. From the level of savage life, we\ntrace witchcraft surviving throughout the barbarian and early civilized\nworld. It was existing in Europe in the centuries preceding the 10th,\nbut with no especial prominence, while laws of Rothar and Charlemagne\nare actually directed against such as should put men or women to death\non the charge of witchcraft. In the 11th century, ecclesiastical\ninfluence was discouraging the superstitious belief in sorcery. But now\na period of reaction set in. The works of the monastic legend and\nmiracle-mongers more and more encouraged a baneful credulity as to the\nsupernatural. In the 13th century, when the spirit of religious\npersecution had begun to possess all Europe with a dark and cruel\nmadness, the doctrine of witchcraft revived with all its barbaric\nvigour.[223] That the guilt of thus bringing down Europe intellectually\nand morally to the level of negro Africa lies in the main upon the Roman\nChurch, the records of Popes Gregory IX. and Innocent VIII., and the\nhistory of the Holy Inquisition, are conclusive evidence to prove. To us\nhere the main interest of medi\u00e6val witchcraft lies in the extent and\naccuracy with which the theory of survival explains it. In the very\ndetails of the bald conventional accusations that were sworn against the\nwitches, there may be traced tradition often hardly modified from\nbarbarous and savage times. They raised storms by magic rites, they had\ncharms against the hurt of weapons, they had their assemblies on wild\nheath and mountain-top, they could ride through the air on beasts and\neven turn into witch-cats and were-wolves themselves, they had familiar\nspirits, they had intercourse with incubi and succubi, they conveyed\nthorns, pins, feathers and such things into their victims\u2019 bodies, they\ncaused disease by demoniacal possession, they could bewitch by spells\nand the evil eye, by practising on images and symbols, on food and\nproperty. Now all this is sheer survival from pr\u00e6-Christian ages, \u2018in\nerrore paganorum revolvitur,\u2019 as Burchard of Worms said of the\nsuperstition of his time.[224] Two of the most familiar devices used\nagainst the medi\u00e6val witches may serve to show the place in civilization\nof the whole craft. The Oriental jinn are in such deadly terror of iron,\nthat its very name is a charm against them; and so in European folk-lore\niron drives away fairies and elves, and destroys their power. They are\nessentially, it seems, creatures belonging to the ancient Stone Age, and\nthe new metal is hateful and hurtful to them. Now as to iron, witches\nare brought under the same category as elves and nightmares. Iron\ninstruments keep them at bay, and especially iron horseshoes have been\nchosen for this purpose, as half the stable doors in England still\nshow.[225] Again, one of the best known of English witch ordeals is the\ntrial by \u2018fleeting\u2019 or swimming. Bound hand and foot, the accused was\nflung into deep water, to sink if innocent and swim if guilty, and in\nthe latter case, as Hudibras has it, to be hanged only for not being\ndrowned. King James, who seems to have had a notion of the real\nprimitive meaning of this rite, says in his D\u00e6monology, \u2018It appears that\nGod hath appointed for a supernatural signe of the monstrous impietie of\nwitches, that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom that\nhave shaken off them the sacred water of baptism,\u2019 &c. Now, in early\nGerman history this same trial by water was well known, and its meaning\nrecognized to be that the conscious element rejects the guilty (si aqua\nillum velut innoxium receperit\u2014innoxii submerguntur aqua, culpabiles\nsupernatant). Already in the 9th century the laws were prohibiting this\npractice as a relic of superstition. Lastly, the same trial by water is\nrecognized as one of the regular judicial ordeals in the Hindu code of\nManu; if the water does not cause the accused to float when plunged into\nit, his oath is true. As this ancient Indian body of laws was itself no\ndoubt compiled from materials of still earlier date, we may venture to\ntake the correspondence of the water-ordeal among the European and\nAsiatic branches of the Aryan race as carrying back its origin to a\nperiod of remote antiquity.[226]\n\nLet us hope that if the belief in present witchcraft, and the\npersecution necessarily ensuing upon such belief, once more come into\nprominence in the civilized world, they may appear in a milder shape\nthan heretofore, and be kept down by stronger humanity and tolerance.\nBut any one who fancies from their present disappearance that they have\nnecessarily disappeared for ever, must have read history to little\npurpose, and has yet to learn that \u2018revival in culture\u2019 is something\nmore than an empty pedantic phrase. Our own time has revived a group of\nbeliefs and practices which have their roots deep in the very stratum of\nearly philosophy where witchcraft makes its first appearance. This group\nof beliefs and practices constitutes what is now commonly known as\nSpiritualism.\n\nWitchcraft and Spiritualism have existed for thousands of years in a\ncloseness of union not unfairly typified in this verse from John Bale\u2019s\n16th-century Interlude concerning Nature, which brings under one head\nthe art of bewitching vegetables and poultry, and causing supernatural\nmovement of stools and crockery.\n\n                       \u2018Theyr wells I can up drye,\n                       Cause trees and herbes to dye,\n                       And slee all pulterye,\n                         Whereas men doth me move:\n                       I can make stoles to daunce\n                       And earthen pottes to praunce,\n                       That none shall them enhaunce,\n                         And do but cast my glove.\u2019\n\nThe same intellectual movement led to the decline of both witchcraft and\nspiritualism, till, early in the last century, men thought that both\nwere dying or all but dead together. Now, however, not only are\nspiritualists to be counted by tens of thousands in America and England,\nbut there are among them several men of distinguished mental power. I am\nwell aware that the problem of the so-called \u2018spirit-manifestations\u2019 is\none to be discussed on its merits, in order to arrive at a distinct\nopinion how far it may be concerned with facts insufficiently\nappreciated and explained by science, and how far with superstition,\ndelusion, and sheer knavery. Such investigation, pursued by careful\nobservation in a scientific spirit, would seem apt to throw light on\nsome most interesting psychological questions. But though it lies beyond\nmy scope to examine the spiritualistic evidence for itself, the\nethnographic view of the matter has, nevertheless, its value. This shows\nmodern spiritualism to be in great measure a direct revival from the\nregions of savage philosophy and peasant folk-lore. It is not a simple\nquestion of the existence of certain phenomena of mind and matter. It is\nthat, in connexion with these phenomena, a great philosophic-religious\ndoctrine, flourishing in the lower culture but dwindling in the higher,\nhas re-established itself in full vigour. The world is again swarming\nwith intelligent and powerful disembodied spiritual beings, whose direct\naction on thought and matter is again confidently asserted, as in those\ntimes and countries where physical science had not as yet so far\nsucceeded in extruding these spirits and their influences from the\nsystem of nature.\n\nApparitions have regained the place and meaning which they held from the\nlevel of the lower races to that of medi\u00e6val Europe. The regular\nghost-stories, in which spirits of the dead walk visibly and have\nintercourse with corporeal men, are now restored and cited with new\nexamples as \u2018glimpses of the night-side of nature,\u2019 nor have these\nstories changed either their strength to those who are disposed to\nbelieve them, or their weakness to those who are not. As of old, men\nlive now in habitual intercourse with the spirits of the dead.\nNecromancy is a religion, and the Chinese manes-worshipper may see the\nouter barbarians come back, after a heretical interval of a few\ncenturies, into sympathy with his time-honoured creed. As the sorcerers\nof barbarous tribes lie in bodily lethargy or sleep while their souls\ndepart on distant journeys, so it is not uncommon in modern\nspiritualistic narratives for persons to be in an insensible state when\ntheir apparitions visit distant places, whence they bring back\ninformation, and where they communicate with the living. The spirits of\nthe living as well as of the dead, the souls of Strauss and Carl Vogt as\nwell as of Augustine and Jerome, are summoned by mediums to distant\nspirit-circles. As Dr. Bastian remarks, if any celebrated man in Europe\nfeels himself at some moment in a melancholy mood, he may console\nhimself with the idea that his soul has been sent for to America, to\nassist at the \u2018rough fixings\u2019 of some backwoodsman. Fifty years ago, Dr.\nMacculloch, in his \u2018Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,\u2019\nwrote thus of the famous Highland second-sight: \u2018In fact it has\nundergone the fate of witchcraft; ceasing to be believed, it has ceased\nto exist.\u2019 Yet a generation later he would have found it reinstated in a\nfar larger range of society, and under far better circumstances of\nlearning and material prosperity. Among the influences which have\ncombined to bring about the spiritualistic renaissance, a prominent\nplace may, I think, be given to the effect produced on the religious\nmind of Europe and America by the intensely animistic teachings of\nEmanuel Swedenborg, in the 18th century. The position of this remarkable\nvisionary as to some of the particular spiritualistic doctrines may be\njudged of by the following statements from \u2018The True Christian\nReligion.\u2019 A man\u2019s spirit is his mind, which lives after death in\ncomplete human form, and this spirit may be conveyed from place to place\nwhile the body remains at rest, as on some occasions happened to\nSwedenborg himself. \u2018I have conversed,\u2019 he says, \u2018with all my relations\nand friends, likewise with kings and princes, and men of learning, after\ntheir departure out of this life, and this now for twenty-seven years\nwithout interruption.\u2019 And foreseeing that many who read his \u2018Memorable\nRelations\u2019 will believe them to be fictions of imagination, he protests\nin truth they are not fictions, but were really seen and heard; not seen\nand heard in any state of mind in sleep, but in a state of complete\nwakefulness.[227]\n\nI shall have to speak elsewhere of some of the doctrines of modern\nspiritualism, where they seem to fall into their places in the study of\nAnimism. Here, as a means of illustrating the relation of the newer to\nthe older spiritualistic ideas, I propose to glance over the ethnography\nof two of the most popular means of communicating with the spirit-world\nby rapping and writing, and two of the prominent spirit-manifestations,\nthe feat of rising in the air, and the trick of the Davenport Brothers.\n\nThe elf who goes knocking and routing about the house at night, and\nwhose special German name is the \u2018Poltergeist,\u2019 is an old and familiar\npersonage in European folk-lore.[228] From of old, such unexplained\nnoises have been ascribed to the agency of personal spirits, who more\noften than not are considered human souls. The modern Dayaks, Siamese,\nand Singhalese agree with the Esths as to such routing and rapping being\ncaused by spirits.[229] Knockings may be considered mysterious but\nharmless, like those which in Swabia and Franconia are expected during\nAdvent on the Ankl\u00f6pferleins-N\u00e4chte, or \u2018Little Knockers\u2019 Nights.\u2019[230]\nOr they may be useful, as when the Welsh miners think that the\n\u2018knockers\u2019 they hear underground are indicating the rich veins of lead\nand silver.[231] Or they may be simply annoying, as when, in the ninth\ncentury, a malignant spirit infested a parish by knocking at the walls\nas if with a hammer, but being overcome with litanies and holy water,\nconfessed itself to be the familiar of a certain wicked priest, and to\nhave been in hiding under his cloak. Thus, in the seventeenth century,\nthe famous demon-drummer of Tedworth, commemorated by Glanvil in the\n\u2018Saducismus Triumphatus,\u2019 thumped about the doors and the outside of the\nhouse, and \u2018for an hour together it would beat _Roundheads and\nCuckolds_, the _Tat-too_, and several other _Points of War_, as well as\nany Drummer.\u2019[232] But popular philosophy has mostly attached to such\nmysterious noises a foreboding of death, the knock being held as a\nsignal or summons among spirits as among men. The Romans considered that\nthe genius of death thus announced his coming. Modern folk-lore holds\neither that a knocking or rumbling in the floor is an omen of a death\nabout to happen, or that dying persons themselves announce their\ndissolution to their friends in such strange sounds. The English rule\ntakes in both cases: \u2018Three loud and distinct knocks at the bed\u2019s head\nof a sick person, or at the bed\u2019s head or door of any of his relations,\nis an omen of his death.\u2019 We happen to have a good means of testing the\namount of actual correspondence between omen and event necessary to\nestablish these rules: the illogical people who were (and still are)\nable to discover a connexion between the ticking of the \u2018death-watch\u2019\nbeetle and an ensuing death in the house, no doubt found it equally easy\nto give a prophetic interpretation to any other mysterious knocks.[233]\nThere is a story, dated 1534, of a ghost that answered questions by\nknocking in the Catholic church of Orleans, and demanded the removal of\nthe provost\u2019s Lutheran wife, who had been buried there; but the affair\nproved to be a trick of a Franciscan friar.[234] The system of working\nan alphabet by counted raps is a device familiar to prison-cells, where\nit has long been at once the despair of gaolers and an evidence of the\ndiffusion of education even among the criminal classes. Thus when, in\n1847, the celebrated rappings began to trouble the township of Arcadia\nin the State of New York, the Fox family of Rochester, founders of the\nmodern spiritual movement, had on the one hand only to revive the\nancient prevalent belief in spirit-rappings, which had almost fallen\ninto the limbo of discredited superstitions, while, on the other hand,\nthe system of communication with the spirits was ready made to their\nhand. The system of a rapping-alphabet remains in full use, and\nnumberless specimens of messages thus received are in print, possibly\nthe longest being a novel, of which I can only give the title, \u2018Juanita,\nNouvelle par une Chaise. \u00c0 l\u2019Imprimerie du Gouvernement, Basse Terre\n(Guadeloupe), 1853.\u2019 In the recorded communications, names, dates, &c.,\nare often alleged to have been stated under remarkable circumstances,\nwhile the style of thought, language, and spelling fits with the\nintellectual quality of the medium. A large proportion of the\ncommunications being obviously false and silly, even when the \u2018spirit\u2019\nhas announced itself in the name of some great statesman, moralist, or\nphilosopher of the past, the theory has been adopted by spiritualists\nthat foolish or lying spirits are apt to personate those of higher\ndegree, and give messages in their names.\n\nSpirit-writing is of two kinds, according as it is done with or without\na material instrument. The first kind is in full practice in China,\nwhere, like other rites of divination, it is probably ancient. It is\ncalled \u2018descending of the pencil,\u2019 and is especially used by the\nliterary classes. When a Chinese wishes to consult a god in this way, he\nsends for a professional medium. Before the image of the god are set\ncandles and incense, and an offering of tea or mock money. In front of\nthis, on another table, is placed an oblong tray of dry sand. The\nwriting instrument is a V-shaped wooden handle, two or three feet long,\nwith a wooden tooth fixed at its point. Two persons hold this\ninstrument, each grasping one leg of it, and the point resting in the\nsand. Proper prayers and charms induce the god to manifest his presence\nby a movement of the point in the sand, and thus the response is\nwritten, and there only remains the somewhat difficult and doubtful task\nof deciphering it. To what state of opinion the rite belongs may be\njudged from this: when the sacred apricot-tree is to be robbed of a\nbranch to make the spirit-pen an apologetic inscription is scratched\nupon the trunk.[235] Notwithstanding theological differences between\nChina and England, the art of spirit-writing is much the same in the two\ncountries. A kind of \u2018planchette\u2019 seems to have been known in Europe in\nthe seventeenth century.[236] The instrument, which may now be bought at\nthe toy-shops, is a heart-shaped board some seven inches long, resting\non three supports, of which the two at the wide end are castors, and the\nthird at the pointed end is a pencil thrust through a hole in the board.\nThe instrument is placed on a sheet of paper, and worked by two persons\nlaying their fingers lightly on it, waiting till, without conscious\neffort of the operators, it moves and writes answers to questions. It is\nnot everybody who has the faculty of spirit-writing, but a powerful\nmedium will write alone. Such mediums sometimes consider themselves\nacted on by some power separate from themselves, in fact, possessed.\n\nEcclesiastical history commemorates a miracle at the close of the Nicene\nCouncil. Two bishops, Chrysanthus and Mysonius, had died during its\nsitting, and the remaining crowd of Fathers brought the acts, signed by\nthemselves, to the tomb, addressed the deceased bishops as if still\nalive, and left the document. Next day, returning, they found the two\nsignatures added, to this effect:\u2014\u2018We, Chrysanthus and Mysonius,\nconsenting with all the Fathers in the holy first and \u0153cumenical Nicene\nSynod, although translated from the body, have also signed the volume\nwith our own hands.\u2019[237] Such spirit-writing without material\ninstrument has lately been renewed by the Baron de Guldenstubb\u00e9. This\nwriter confirms by new evidence the truth of the tradition of all\npeoples as to souls of the dead keeping up their connexion with their\nmortal remains, and haunting the places where they dwelt \u2018during their\nterrestrial incarnation.\u2019 Thus Francis I. manifests himself principally\nat Fontainebleau, while Louis XV. and Marie-Antoinette roam about the\nTrianons. Moreover, if pieces of blank paper be set out in suitable\nplaces, the spirits, enveloped in their ethereal bodies, will\nconcentrate by their force of will electric currents on the paper, and\nso form written characters. The Baron publishes, in his \u2018Pneumatologie\nPositive,\u2019 a mass of facsimiles of spirit-writings thus obtained. Julius\nand Augustus C\u00e6sar give their names near their statues in the Louvre;\nJuvenal produces a ludicrous attempt at a copy of verses; H\u00e9loise at\nP\u00e8re-la-Chaise informs the world, in modern French, that Abelard and she\nare united and happy; St. Paul writes himself \u03b5\u03bb\u03b6\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\n(meaning, we may suppose, \u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03c7\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd); and Hippokrates the\nphysician (who spells himself Hipp\u014dkrat\u0115s) attended M. de Guldenstubb\u00e9\nat his lodgings in Paris, and gave him a signature which of itself cured\na sharp attack of rheumatism in a few minutes.[238]\n\nThe miracle of rising and floating in the air is one fully recognized in\nthe literature of ancient India. The Buddhist saint of high ascetic rank\nattains the power called \u2018perfection\u2019 (irdhi), whereby he is able to\nrise in the air, as also to overturn the earth and stop the sun. Having\nthis power, the saint exercises it by the mere determination of his\nwill, his body becoming imponderous, as when a man in the common human\nstate determines to leap, and leaps. Buddhist annals relate the\nperformance of the miraculous suspension by Gautama himself, as well as\nby other saints, as, for example, his ancestor Maha Sammata, who could\nthus seat himself in the air without visible support. Even without this\nexalted faculty, it is considered possible to rise and move in the air\nby an effort of ecstatic joy (udwega pr\u00eeti). A remarkable mention of\nthis feat, as said to be performed by the Indian Brahmans, occurs in the\nthird-century biography of Apollonius of Tyana; these Brahmans are\ndescribed as going about in the air some two cubits from the ground, not\nfor the sake of miracle (such ambition they despised), but for its being\nmore suitable to solar rites.[239] Foreign conjurers were professing to\nexhibit this miracle among the Greeks in the second century, as witness\nLucian\u2019s jocular account of the Hyperborean conjurer:\u2014\u2018Thou art joking,\nsaid Kleodemos, but I was once more incredulous than thou about such\nthings, for I thought nothing could have persuaded me to believe them;\nbut when I first saw that foreign barbarian flying\u2014he was of the\nHyperboreans, he said\u2014I believed, and was overcome in spite of my\nresistance. For what was I to do, when I saw him carried through the air\nin daylight, and walking on the water, and passing leisurely and slowly\nthrough the fire? What? (said his interlocutor), you saw the Hyperborean\nman flying, and walking on the water? To be sure, said he, and he had on\nundressed leather brogues as they generally wear them; but what\u2019s the\nuse of talking of such trifles, considering what other manifestations he\nshowed us,\u2014sending loves, calling up demons, raising the dead, and\nbringing in Hekate herself visibly, and drawing down the moon?\u2019\nKleodemos then goes on to relate how the conjurer first had his four\nmin\u00e6 down for sacrificial expenses, and then made a clay Cupid, and sent\nit flying through the air to fetch the girl whom Glaukias had fallen in\nlove with, and presently, lo and behold, there she was knocking at the\ndoor! The interlocutor, however, comments in a sceptical vein on the\nnarrative. It was scarce needful, he says, to have taken the trouble to\nsend for the girl with clay, and a magician from the Hyperboreans, and\neven the moon, considering that for twenty drachmas she would have let\nherself be taken to the Hyperboreans themselves; and she seems,\nmoreover, to have been affected in quite an opposite way to spirits, for\nwhereas these beings take flight if they hear the noise of brass or\niron, Chrysis no sooner hears the chink of silver anywhere, but she\ncomes toward the sound.[240] Another early instance of the belief in\nmiraculous suspension is in the life of Iamblichus, the great\nNeo-Platonist mystic. His disciples says Eunapius, told him they had\nheard a report from his servants, that while in prayer to the gods he\nhad been lifted more than ten cubits from the ground, his body and\nclothes changing to a beautiful golden colour, but after he ceased from\nprayer his body became as before, and then he came down to the ground\nand returned to the society of his followers. They entreated him\ntherefore, \u2018Why, O most divine teacher, why dost thou do such things by\nthyself, and not let us partake of the more perfect wisdom?\u2019 Then\nIamblichus, though not given to laughter, laughed at this story, and\nsaid to them, \u2018It was no fool who tricked you thus, but the thing is not\ntrue.\u2019[241]\n\nAfter a while, the prodigy which the Platonist disclaimed, became a\nusual attribute of Christian saints. Thus St. Richard, then chancellor\nto St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, one day softly opening the\nchapel door, to see why the archbishop did not come to dinner, saw him\nraised high in the air, with his knees bent and his arms stretched out;\nfalling gently to the ground, and seeing the chancellor, he complained\nthat he had hindered him of great spiritual delight and comfort. So St.\nPhilip Neri used to be sometimes seen raised several yards from the\nground during his rapturous devotions, with a bright light shining from\nhis countenance. St. Ignatius Loyola is declared to have been raised\nabout two feet under the same circumstances, and similar legends of\ndevout ascetics being not only metaphorically but materially \u2018raised\nabove the earth\u2019 are told in the lives of St. Dominic, St. Dunstan, St.\nTheresa, and other less-known saints. In the last century, Dom Calmet\nspeaks of knowing a good monk who rises sometimes from the ground and\nremains involuntarily suspended, especially on seeing some devotional\nimage or hearing some devout prayer, and also a nun who has often seen\nherself raised in spite of herself to a certain distance from the earth.\nUnfortunately the great commentator does not specify any witnesses as\nhaving seen the monk and nun rise in the air. If they only thought\nthemselves thus elevated, their stories can only rank with that of the\nyoung man mentioned by De Maistre, who so often seemed to himself to\nfloat in the air, that he came to suspect that gravitation might not be\nnatural to man.[242] The hallucination of rising and floating in the air\nis extremely common, and ascetics of all religions are especially liable\nto it.\n\nAmong modern accounts of diabolic possession, also, the rising in the\nair is described as taking place not subjectively but objectively. In\n1657, Richard Jones, a sprightly lad of twelve years old, living at\nShepton Mallet, was bewitched by one Jane Brooks; he was seen to rise in\nthe air and pass over a garden wall some thirty yards, and at other\ntimes was found in a room with his hands flat against a beam at the top\nof the room, and his body two or three feet from the ground, nine people\nat a time seeing him in this latter position. Jane Brooks was\naccordingly condemned and executed at Chard Assizes in March, 1658.\nRichard, the Surrey demoniac of 1689, was hoisted up in the air and let\ndown by Satan; at the beginning of his fits he was, as it were, blown or\nsnatched or borne up suddenly from his chair, as if he would have flown\naway, but that those who held him hung to his arms and legs and clung\nabout him. One account (not the official medical one) of the demoniacal\npossessions at Morzine in Savoy, in 1864, relates that a patient was\nheld suspended in the air by an invisible force during some seconds or\nminutes above the cemetery, in the presence of the archbishop.[243]\nModern spiritualists claim this power as possessed by certain\ndistinguished living mediums, who, indeed, profess to rival in sober\nfact the aerostatic miracles of Buddhist and Catholic legend. The force\nemployed is of course considered to be that of the spirits.\n\nThe performances of tied mediums have been specially represented in\nEngland by the Davenport Brothers, who \u2018are generally recognized by\nSpiritualists as genuine media, and attribute the reverse opinion so\ndeeply rooted in the public mind, to the untruthfulness of the London\nand many other newspapers.\u2019 The performers were bound fast and shut by\nthemselves in a dark cabinet, with musical instruments, whence not only\nmusical sounds proceeded, but the coats of the mediums were taken off\nand replaced; yet on inspection their bodies were discovered still\nbound. The spirits would also release the bound mediums from their\ncords, however carefully tied about them.[244] Now the idea of\nsupernatural unbinding is very ancient, vouched for as it is by no less\na personage than the crafty Odysseus himself, in his adventure on board\nthe ship of the Thesprotians:\n\n             \u2018Me on the well-benched vessel, strongly bound,\n             They leave, and snatch their meal upon the beach.\n             But to my help the gods themselves unwound\n             My cords with ease, though firmly twisted round.\u2019\n\nIn early English chronicle, we find it in a story told by the Venerable\nBede. A certain Imma was found all but dead on the field of battle, and\ntaken prisoner, but when he began to recover and was put in bonds to\nprevent his escaping, no sooner did his binders leave him but he was\nloose again. The earl who owned him enquired whether he had about him\nsuch \u2018loosening letters\u2019 (literas solutorias) as tales were told of; the\nman replied that he knew naught of such arts; yet when his owner sold\nhim to another master, there was still no binding him. The received\nexplanation of this strange power was emphatically a spiritual one. His\nbrother had sought for his dead body, and finding another like him,\nburied it and proceeded to say masses for his brother\u2019s soul, by the\ncelebration whereof it came to pass that no one could fasten him, for he\nwas out of bonds again directly. So they sent him home to Kent, whence\nhe duly returned his ransom, and his story, it is related, stimulated\nmany to devotion, who understood by it how salutary are masses to the\nredemption both of soul and body. Again, there prevailed in Scotland up\nto the 18th century this notion: when the lunatics who had been brought\nto St. Fillan\u2019s Pool to be bathed, were laid bound in the neighbouring\nchurch next night, if they were found loose in the morning their\nrecovery was expected, but if at dawn they were still bound, their cure\nwas doubtful.\n\nThe untying trick performed among savages is so similar to that of our\nmountebanks, that when we find the North American Indian jugglers doing\nboth this and the familiar trick of breathing fire, we are at a loss to\njudge whether they inherited these two feats from their savage\nancestors, or borrowed them from the white men. The point is not,\nhowever, the mere performance of the untying trick, but its being\nattributed to the help of spiritual beings. This notion is thoroughly at\nhome in savage culture. It comes out well in the Esquimaux\u2019 accounts\nwhich date from early in the 18th century. Cranz thus describes the\nGreenland angekok setting out on his mystic journey to heaven and hell.\nWhen he has drummed awhile and made all sorts of wondrous contortions,\nhe is himself bound with a thong by one of his pupils, his head between\nhis legs, and his hands behind his back. All the lamps in the house are\nput out, and the windows darkened, for no one must see him hold\nintercourse with his spirit, no one must move or even scratch his head,\nthat the spirit may not be interfered with\u2014or rather, says the\nmissionary, that no one may catch him at his trickery, for there is no\ngoing up to heaven in broad daylight. At last, after strange noises have\nbeen heard, and a visit has been received or paid to the torngak or\nspirit, the magician reappears unbound, but pale and excited, and gives\nan account of his adventures. Castr\u00e9n\u2019s account of the similar\nproceedings of the Siberian shamans is as follows: \u2018They are practised\u2019\nhe says, \u2018in all sorts of conjuring-tricks, by which they know how to\ndazzle the simple crowd, and inspire greater trust in themselves. One of\nthe most usual juggleries of the shamans in the Government of Tomsk\nconsists of the following hocus-pocus, a wonder to the Russians as well\nas to the Samoieds. The shaman sits down on the wrong side of a dry\nreindeer-hide spread in the middle of the floor. There he lets himself\nbe bound hand and foot by the assistants. The shutters are closed, and\nthe shaman begins to invoke his ministering spirits. All at once there\narises a mysterious ghostliness in the dark space. Voices are heard from\ndifferent parts, both within and without the yurt, while on the dry\nreindeer skin there is a rattling and drumming in regular time. Bears\ngrowl, snakes hiss, and squirrels leap about in the room. At last this\nuncanny work ceases, and the audience impatiently await the result of\nthe game. A few moments pass in this expectation, and behold, the shaman\nwalks in free and unbound from outside. No one doubts that it was the\nspirits who were drumming, growling, and hissing, who released the\nshaman from his bonds, and who carried him by secret ways out of the\nyurt.\u2019[245]\n\nOn the whole, the ethnography of spiritualism bears on practical opinion\nsomewhat in this manner. Beside the question of the absolute truth or\nfalsity of the alleged possessions, names-oracles, doubles, brain-waves,\nfurniture movings, and floatings in the air, there remains the history\nof spiritualistic belief as a matter of opinion. Hereby it appears that\nthe received spiritualistic theory of the alleged phenomena belongs to\nthe philosophy of savages. As to such matters as apparitions or\npossessions this is obvious, and it holds in more extreme cases. Suppose\na wild North American Indian looking on at a spirit-s\u00e9ance in London. As\nto the presence of disembodied spirits, manifesting themselves by raps,\nnoises, voices, and other physical actions, the savage would be\nperfectly at home in the proceedings, for such things are part and\nparcel of his recognized system of nature. The part of the affair really\nstrange to him would be the introduction of such arts as spelling and\nwriting, which do belong to a different state of civilization from his.\nThe issue raised by the comparison of savage, barbaric, and civilized\nspiritualism, is this: Do the Red Indian medicine-man, the Tatar\nnecromancer, the Highland ghost-seer, and the Boston medium, share the\npossession of belief and knowledge of the highest truth and import,\nwhich, nevertheless, the great intellectual movement of the last two\ncenturies has simply thrown aside as worthless? Is what we are\nhabitually boasting of and calling new enlightenment, then, in fact a\ndecay of knowledge? If so, this is a truly remarkable case of\ndegeneration, and the savages whom some ethnographers look on as\ndegenerate from a higher civilization, may turn on their accusers and\ncharge them with having fallen from the high level of savage knowledge.\n\nThroughout the whole of this varied investigation, whether of the\ndwindling survival of old culture, or of its bursting forth afresh in\nactive revival, it may perhaps be complained that its illustrations\nshould be chosen so much among things worn out, worthless, frivolous, or\neven bad with downright harmful folly. It is in fact so, and I have\ntaken up this course of argument with full knowledge and intent. For,\nindeed, we have in such enquiries continual reason to be thankful for\nfools. It is quite wonderful, even if we hardly go below the surface of\nthe subject, to see how large a share stupidity and unpractical\nconservatism and dogged superstition have had in preserving for us\ntraces of the history of our race, which practical utilitarianism would\nhave remorselessly swept away. The savage is firmly, obstinately\nconservative. No man appeals with more unhesitating confidence to the\ngreat precedent-makers of the past; the wisdom of his ancestors can\ncontrol against the most obvious evidence his own opinions and actions.\nWe listen with pity to the rude Indian as he maintains against civilized\nscience and experience the authority of his rude forefathers. We smile\nat the Chinese appealing against modern innovation to the golden\nprecepts of Confucius, who in his time looked back with the same\nprostrate reverence to sages still more ancient, counselling his\ndisciples to follow the seasons of Hea, to ride in the carriage of Yin,\nto wear the ceremonial cap of Chow.\n\nThe nobler tendency of advancing culture, and above all of scientific\nculture, is to honour the dead without grovelling before them, to profit\nby the past without sacrificing the present to it. Yet even the modern\ncivilized world has but half learnt this lesson, and an unprejudiced\nsurvey may lead us to judge how many of our ideas and customs exist\nrather by being old than by being good. Now in dealing with hurtful\nsuperstitions, the proof that they are things which it is the tendency\nof savagery to produce, and of higher culture to destroy, is accepted as\na fair controversial argument. The mere historical position of a belief\nor custom may raise a presumption as to its origin which becomes a\npresumption as to its authenticity. Dr. Middleton\u2019s celebrated Letter\nfrom Rome shows cases in point. He mentions the image of Diana at\nEphesus which fell from the sky, thereby damaging the pretensions of the\nCalabrian image of St. Dominic, which, according to pious tradition, was\nlikewise brought down from heaven. He notices that as the blood of St.\nJanuarius now melts miraculously without heat, so ages ago the priests\nof Gnatia tried to persuade Horace, on his road to Brundusium, that the\nfrankincense in their temple had the habit of melting in like manner:\n\n                               \u2018... dehinc Gnatia lymphis\n               Iratis exstructa dedit risusque jocosque;\n               Dum flamma sine thura liquescere limine sacro,\n               Persuadere cupit: credat Jud\u00e6us Apella;\n               Non ego.\u2019[246]\n\nThus ethnographers, not without a certain grim satisfaction, may at\ntimes find means to make stupid and evil superstitions bear witness\nagainst themselves.\n\nMoreover, in working to gain an insight into the general laws of\nintellectual movement, there is practical gain in being able to study\nthem rather among antiquarian relics of no intense modern interest, than\namong those seething problems of the day on which action has to be taken\namid ferment and sharp strife. Should some moralist or politician speak\ncontemptuously of the vanity of studying matters without practical\nmoment, it will generally be found that his own mode of treatment will\nconsist in partizan diatribes on the questions of the day, a proceeding\npractical enough, especially in confirming those who agree with him\nalready, but the extreme opposite to the scientific way of eliciting\ntruth. The ethnographer\u2019s course, again, should be like that of the\nanatomist who carries on his studies if possible rather on dead than on\nliving subjects; vivisection is nervous work, and the humane\ninvestigator hates inflicting needless pain. Thus when the student of\nculture occupies himself in viewing the bearings of exploded\ncontroversies, or in unravelling the history of long-superseded\ninventions, he is gladly seeking his evidence rather in such dead old\nhistory, than in the discussions where he and those he lives among are\nalive with intense party feeling, and where his judgment is biassed by\nthe pressure of personal sympathy, and even it may be of personal gain\nor loss. So, from things which perhaps never were of high importance,\nthings which have fallen out of popular significance, or even out of\npopular memory, he tries to elicit general laws of culture, often to be\nthus more easily and fully gained than in the arena of modern philosophy\nand politics.\n\nBut the opinions drawn from old or worn-out culture are not to be left\nlying where they were shaped. It is no more reasonable to suppose the\nlaws of mind differently constituted in Australia and in England, in the\ntime of the cave-dwellers and in the time of the builders of sheet-iron\nhouses, than to suppose that the laws of chemical combination were of\none sort in the time of the coal-measures, and are of another now. The\nthing that has been will be; and we are to study savages and old nations\nto learn the laws that under new circumstances are working for good or\nill in our own development. If it is needful to give an instance of the\ndirectness with which antiquity and savagery bear upon our modern life,\nlet it be taken in the facts just brought forward on the relation of\nancient sorcery to the belief in witchcraft which was not long since one\nof the gravest facts of European history, and of savage spiritualism to\nbeliefs which so deeply affect our civilization now. No one who can see\nin these cases, and in many others to be brought before him in these\nvolumes, how direct and close the connexion may be between modern\nculture and the condition of the rudest savage, will be prone to accuse\nstudents who spend their labour on even the lowest and most trifling\nfacts of ethnography, of wasting their hours in the satisfaction of a\nfrivolous curiosity.\n\nFootnote 160:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 119.\n\nFootnote 161:\n\n  \u2018Life of Nath. Pearce,\u2019 ed. by J. J. Halls, vol. i. p. 286.\n\nFootnote 162:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p. 328; vol. ii. p. 273; see vol. iv. p.\n  425.\n\nFootnote 163:\n\n  Muir, \u2018Sanskrit Texts,\u2019 part ii. p. 435.\n\nFootnote 164:\n\n  Dalton, \u2018Kols,\u2019 in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. vi. p. 6; see p. 16.\n\nFootnote 165:\n\n  Jas. Gardner, \u2018Faiths of the World,\u2019 s.v. \u2018Exorcism.\u2019\n\nFootnote 166:\n\n  Shortt, \u2018Tribes of Neilgherries,\u2019 in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. vii. pp.\n  247, 277; Sir W. Elliot in \u2018Trans. Congress of Prehistoric\n  Arch\u00e6ology,\u2019 1868, p. 253.\n\nFootnote 167:\n\n  F. R\u00fchs, \u2018Finland,\u2019 p. 296; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 202.\n\nFootnote 168:\n\n  Brand, \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 81-3; see p. 313.\n\nFootnote 169:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Deutsche Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 128; see p. 239.\n\nFootnote 170:\n\n  For an examination of numerous magical arts, mostly coming under this\n  category, see \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 chaps. vi. and x.\n\nFootnote 171:\n\n  Stanbridge, \u2018Abor. of Victoria,\u2019 in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 299;\n  Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 364; J. L. Wilson, \u2018W. Africa,\u2019 p.\n  215; Spiegel, \u2018Avesta,\u2019 vol. i. p. 124; Wuttke, \u2018Deutsche\n  Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 195; general references in \u2018Early History of\n  Mankind,\u2019 p. 129.\n\nFootnote 172:\n\n  Burton, \u2018W. and W. from West Africa,\u2019 p. 411.\n\nFootnote 173:\n\n  W. Gregory, \u2018Letters on Animal Magnetism,\u2019 p. 128.\n\nFootnote 174:\n\n  Eyre, \u2018Australia,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 361; Collins, \u2018New South Wales,\u2019 vol.\n  i. pp. 561, 594.\n\nFootnote 175:\n\n  Shortt, in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. vi. p. 278.\n\nFootnote 176:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 117.\n\nFootnote 177:\n\n  See Grote, vol. iii. pp. 113, 351.\n\nFootnote 178:\n\n  Hardy, \u2018Eastern Monachism,\u2019 p. 241.\n\nFootnote 179:\n\n  Oldfield, in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 246.\n\nFootnote 180:\n\n  Grout, \u2018Zulu-land,\u2019 p. 134.\n\nFootnote 181:\n\n  See specimen and description in the Christy Museum.\n\nFootnote 182:\n\n  Macpherson, \u2018India,\u2019 pp. 130, 363.\n\nFootnote 183:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 31.\n\nFootnote 184:\n\n  R. Hunt, \u2018Pop. Rom. of W. of England,\u2019 2nd ser. p. 165; Brand, \u2018Pop.\n  Ant.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 231.\n\nFootnote 185:\n\n  Wuttke, p. 100.\n\nFootnote 186:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 560.\n\nFootnote 187:\n\n  Brand, vol. iii. p. 240.\n\nFootnote 188:\n\n  Hunt, _ibid._ p. 148.\n\nFootnote 189:\n\n  Wuttke, p. 165; Brand, vol. iii. p. 305.\n\nFootnote 190:\n\n  Magalhanes de Gandavo, p. 125; D\u2019Orbigny, vol. ii. p. 168.\n\nFootnote 191:\n\n  St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. p. 202; \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. ii.\n  p. 357.\n\nFootnote 192:\n\n  Yate, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 90; Polack, vol. i. p. 248.\n\nFootnote 193:\n\n  Klemm, \u2018Cultur-Gesch.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 202.\n\nFootnote 194:\n\n  Burton, \u2018Wit and Wisdom from West Africa,\u2019 p. 381.\n\nFootnote 195:\n\n  See Cornelius Agrippa, \u2018De Occulta Philosophia,\u2019 i. 53; \u2018De Vanitate\n  Scient.\u2019 37; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 1073; Hanusch, \u2018Slaw. Myth.\u2019 p. 285;\n  Brand, vol. iii. pp. 184-227.\n\nFootnote 196:\n\n  Oldfield in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 241.\n\nFootnote 197:\n\n  Steller, \u2018Kamtschatka,\u2019 p. 279.\n\nFootnote 198:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Rel. of Amazulu,\u2019 pp. 236, 241; R. Taylor, \u2018N. Z.\u2019 p. 334.\n\nFootnote 199:\n\n  Artemidorus, \u2018Oneirocritica;\u2019 Cockayne, \u2018Leechdoms, &c., of Early\n  England,\u2019 vol. iii.; Seafield, \u2018Literature, &c., of Dreams;\u2019 Brand,\n  vol. iii.; Halliwell, \u2018Pop. Rhymes, &c.,\u2019 p. 217, &c., &c.\n\nFootnote 200:\n\n  St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 74, 115; Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol.\n  iv. p. 150; Polack, \u2018New Zealanders,\u2019 vol. i. p. 255.\n\nFootnote 201:\n\n  Georgi, \u2018Reise im Russ. Reich,\u2019 vol. i. p. 281; Hooker, \u2018Himalayan\n  Journals,\u2019 vol. i. p. 135; \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 27; Latham, \u2018Descr.\n  Eth.\u2019 vol. i. p. 61.\n\nFootnote 202:\n\n  Cieza de Leon, p. 289; Rivero and Tschudi, \u2018Peru,\u2019 p. 183.\n\nFootnote 203:\n\n  Burton, \u2018Central Afr.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 32; Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 417, 518.\n\nFootnote 204:\n\n  Plin. xi. 73. See Cic. de Divinatione, ii. 12.\n\nFootnote 205:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 32.\n\nFootnote 206:\n\n  Le Jeune, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 vol. i. p. 90.\n\nFootnote 207:\n\n  J. H. Plath, \u2018Rel. d. alten Chinesen,\u2019 part i. p. 89; Klemm, \u2018Cultur.\n  Gesch.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 109, 199; vol. iv. p. 221; Rubruquis, in\n  Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 65; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 1067; R. F. Burton,\n  \u2018Sindh,\u2019 p. 189; M. A. Walker, \u2018Macedonia,\u2019 p. 169.\n\nFootnote 208:\n\n  Brand, vol. iii. p. 339; Forbes Leslie, vol. ii. p. 491.\n\nFootnote 209:\n\n  Maury, \u2018Magie, &c.\u2019, p. 74; Brand, vol. iii. p. 348, &c. See figure in\n  Cornelius Agrippa, \u2018De Occult. Philosoph.,\u2019 ii. 27.\n\nFootnote 210:\n\n  R. Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 205; Shortland, p. 139; Callaway,\n  \u2018Religion of Amazulu,\u2019 p. 330, &c.; Theophylact. in Brand, vol. iii.\n  p. 332. Compare mentions of similar devices; Herodot. iv. 67\n  (Scythia); Burton, \u2018Central Africa,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 350.\n\nFootnote 211:\n\n  Migne\u2019s \u2018Dic. des Sciences Occultes.\u2019\n\nFootnote 212:\n\n  Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1865, part ii. p. 200;\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 146.\n\nFootnote 213:\n\n  Hodgson, \u2018Abor. of India,\u2019 p. 170. See Macpherson, p. 106 (Khonds).\n\nFootnote 214:\n\n  Ammian. Marcellin. xxix. 1.\n\nFootnote 215:\n\n  Chevreul, \u2018De la Baguette Divinatoire, du Pendule dit Explorateur et\n  des Tables Tournantes,\u2019 Paris, 1854; Brand, vol. iii. p. 332; Grimm,\n  \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 926; H. B. Woodward, in \u2018Geological Mag.,\u2019 Nov. 1872;\n  Wuttke, p. 94.\n\nFootnote 216:\n\n  Cornelius Agrippa, \u2018De Speciebus Magi\u00e6,\u2019 xxi.; Brand, vol. iii. p.\n  351; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 1062.\n\nFootnote 217:\n\n  De Maistre, \u2018Soir\u00e9es de St. Petersbourg,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 212.\n\nFootnote 218:\n\n  Shortland, \u2018Trads., &c. of New Zealand,\u2019 p. 138.\n\nFootnote 219:\n\n  See Cicero, \u2018De Div.\u2019 i.; Lucian, \u2018De Astrolog.\u2019; Cornelius Agrippa,\n  \u2018De Occulta Philosophia;\u2019 Sibly, \u2018Occult Sciences;\u2019 Brand, vol. iii.\n\nFootnote 220:\n\n  Plin. xvi. 75; xviii. 75; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 676; Brand, vol. ii. p.\n  169; vol. iii. p. 144.\n\nFootnote 221:\n\n  Bacon, \u2018Novum Organum.\u2019 The original story is that of Diagoras; see\n  Cicero, \u2018De Natura Deorum,\u2019 iii. 37; Diog. La\u00ebrt. lib. vi., Diogenes,\n  6.\n\nFootnote 222:\n\n  Du Chaillu, \u2018Ashango-land,\u2019 pp. 428, 435; Burton, \u2018Central Afr.\u2019 vol.\n  i. pp. 57, 113, 121.\n\nFootnote 223:\n\n  See Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 ch. xxxiv.; Lecky, \u2018Hist. of Rationalism,\u2019 vol. i.\n  chap. i.; Horst, \u2018Zauber-Bibliothek;\u2019 Raynald, \u2018Annales\n  Ecclesiastici,\u2019 vol. ii., Greg. IX. (1233), xli.-ii.; Innoc. VIII.\n  (1484), lxxiv.\n\nFootnote 224:\n\n  See also Dasent, \u2018Introd. to Norse Tales;\u2019 Maury, \u2018Magie, &c.,\u2019 ch.\n  vii.\n\nFootnote 225:\n\n  Lane, \u2018Thousand and One Nights,\u2019 vol. i. p. 30; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp.\n  435, 465, 1056; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 265, 287; vol. iii. p.\n  204; D. Wilson, \u2018Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 126;\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 pp. 15, 20, 122, 220.\n\nFootnote 226:\n\n  Brand, \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 1-43; Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p.\n  50; Grimm, \u2018Deutsche Rechtsalterth\u00fcmer,\u2019 p. 923; Pictet, \u2018Origines\n  Indo-Europ.\u2019 part ii. p. 459; Manu, viii., 114-5; see Plin. vii. 2.\n\nFootnote 227:\n\n  Swedenborg, \u2018The True Christian Religion,\u2019 London, 1855, Nos. 156,\n  157, 281, 851.\n\nFootnote 228:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018Deutsche Myth,\u2019 pp. 473, 481.\n\nFootnote 229:\n\n  St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. p. 82; Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 111;\n  \u2018Oestl. Asien.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 232, 259, 288; Boecler, \u2018Ehsten\n  Aberglaube,\u2019 p. 147.\n\nFootnote 230:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 74.\n\nFootnote 231:\n\n  Brand, vol. ii. p. 486.\n\nFootnote 232:\n\n  Glanvil, \u2018Saducismus Triumphatus,\u2019 part ii. The invisible drummer\n  appears to have been one William Drury; see \u2018Pepys\u2019 Diary,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  227.\n\nFootnote 233:\n\n  Brand, vol. iii. pp. 225, 233; Grimm, pp. 801, 1089, 1141; Wuttke, pp.\n  38-9, 208; Shortland, \u2018Trads. of New Zealand,\u2019 p. 137 (ominous ticking\n  of insect, doubtful whether idea native, or introduced by foreigners).\n\nFootnote 234:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 393.\n\nFootnote 235:\n\n  Doolittle, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 112; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol.\n  iii. p. 252; \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 159.\n\nFootnote 236:\n\n  Toehla, \u2018Aurifontina Chymica,\u2019 cited by K. R. H. Mackenzie, in\n  \u2018Spiritualist,\u2019 Mar. 15, 1870.\n\nFootnote 237:\n\n  Nicephor. Callist. Ecclesiast. Hist. viii. 23; Stanley, \u2018Eastern\n  Church,\u2019 p. 172.\n\nFootnote 238:\n\n  \u2018Pneumatologie Positive et Exp\u00e9rimentale; La R\u00e9alit\u00e9 des Esprits et le\n  Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne Merveilleux de leur \u00c9criture Directe d\u00e9montr\u00e9s,\u2019 par le\n  Baron L. de Guldenstubb\u00e9. Paris, 1857.\n\nFootnote 239:\n\n  Hardy, \u2018Manual of Budhism,\u2019 pp. 38, 126, 150; \u2018Eastern Monachism,\u2019 pp.\n  272, 285, 382; K\u00f6ppen, \u2018Religion des Buddha,\u2019 vol. i. p. 412; Bastian,\n  \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 390; Philostrati Vita Apollon. Tyan. iii.\n  15. See the mention among the Saadhs of India (17th century), by\n  Trant, in \u2018Missionary Register,\u2019 July, 1820, pp. 294-6.\n\nFootnote 240:\n\n  Lucian, Philopseudes, 13.\n\nFootnote 241:\n\n  Eunapius in Iambl.\n\nFootnote 242:\n\n  Alban Butler, \u2018Lives of the Saints,\u2019 vol. i. p. 674; Calmet, \u2018Diss.\n  sur les Apparitions, &c.,\u2019 chap. xxi.; De Maistre, \u2018Soir\u00e9es de St.\n  P\u00e9tersbourg,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 158, 175. See also Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 578; \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 159.\n\nFootnote 243:\n\n  Glanvil, \u2018Saducismus Triumphatus,\u2019 part ii.; Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019\n  p. 161.\n\nFootnote 244:\n\n  \u2018Spiritualist,\u2019 Feb. 15, 1870. Orrin Abbott, \u2018The Davenport Brothers,\u2019\n  New York, 1864.\n\nFootnote 245:\n\n  Homer, Odyss. xiv. 345 (Worsley\u2019s Trans.); Beda, \u2018Historia\n  Ecclesiastica,\u2019 iv. 22; Grimm, \u2018D. M.,\u2019 p. 1180 (an old German\n  loosing-charm is given from the Merseburg MS.); J. Y. Simpson, in\n  \u2018Proc. Ant. Soc. Scotland,\u2019 vol. iv.; Keating, \u2018Long\u2019s Exp. to St.\n  Peter\u2019s River,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 159; Egede, \u2018Greenland,\u2019 p. 189; Cranz,\n  \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 269; Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Reiseberichte,\u2019 1845-9, p. 173.\n\nFootnote 246:\n\n  Conyers Middleton, \u2018A Letter from Rome,\u2019 1729; Hor. Sat. I. v. 98.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V.\n                   EMOTIONAL AND IMITATIVE LANGUAGE.\n\n    Element of directly expressive Sound in Language\u2014Test by independent\n    correspondence in distinct languages\u2014Constituent processes of\n    Language\u2014Gesture\u2014Expression of feature, &c.\u2014Emotional\n    Tone\u2014Articulate sounds, vowels determined by musical quality and\n    pitch, consonants\u2014Emphasis and Accent\u2014Phrase-melody,\n    Recitative\u2014Sound-Words\u2014Interjections\u2014Calls to Animals\u2014Emotional\n    Cries\u2014Sense-Words formed from Interjections\u2014Affirmative and Negative\n    particles, &c.\n\n\nIn carrying on the enquiry into the development of culture, evidence of\nsome weight is to be gained from an examination of Language. Comparing\nthe grammars and dictionaries of races at various grades of\ncivilization, it appears that, in the great art of speech, the educated\nman at this day substantially uses the method of the savage, only\nexpanded and improved in the working out of details. It is true that the\nlanguages of the Tasmanian and the Chinese, of the Greenlander and the\nGreek, differ variously in structure; but this is a secondary\ndifference, underlaid by a primary similarity in method, namely, the\nexpression of ideas by articulate sounds habitually allotted to them.\nNow all languages are found on inspection to contain some articulate\nsounds of a directly natural and directly intelligible kind. These are\nsounds of interjectional or imitative character, which have their\nmeaning not by inheritance from parents or adoption from foreigners, but\nby being taken up directly from the world of sound into the world of\nsense. Like pantomimic gestures, they are capable of conveying their\nmeaning of themselves, without reference to the particular language they\nare used in connexion with. From the observation of these, there have\narisen speculations as to the origin of language, treating such\nexpressive sounds as the fundamental constituents of language in\ngeneral, and considering those of them which are still plainly\nrecognizable as having remained more or less in their original state,\nlong courses of adaptation and variation having produced from such the\ngreat mass of words in all languages, in which no connexion between idea\nand sound can any longer be certainly made out. Thus grew up doctrines\nof a \u2018natural\u2019 origin of language, which, dating from classic times,\nwere developed in the eighteenth century into a system by that powerful\nthinker, the President Charles de Brosses, and in our own time have been\nexpanded and solidified by a school of philologers, among whom Mr.\nHensleigh Wedgwood is the most prominent.[247] These theories have no\ndoubt been incautiously and fancifully worked. No wonder that students\nwho found in nature real and direct sources of articulate speech, in\ninterjectional sounds like _ah!_ _ugh!_ _h\u2019m!_ _sh!_ and in imitative\nsounds like _purr_, _whiz_, _tomtom_, _cuckoo_, should have thought that\nthe whole secret of language lay within their grasp, and that they had\nonly to fit the keys thus found into one hole after another to open\nevery lock. When a philosopher has a truth in his hands, he is apt to\nstretch it farther than it will bear. The magic umbrella must spread and\nspread till it becomes a tent wide enough to shelter the king\u2019s army.\nBut it must be borne in mind that what criticism touches in these\nopinions is their exaggeration, not their reality. That interjections\nand imitative words are really taken up to some extent, be it small or\nlarge, into the very body and structure of language, no one denies. Such\na denial, if anyone offered it, the advocates of the disputed theories\nmight dispose of in the single phrase, that they would neither be\n_pooh-poohed_ nor _hooted_ down. It may be shown within the limits of\nthe most strict and sober argument, that the theory of the origin of\nlanguage in natural and directly expressive sounds does account for a\nconsiderable fraction of the existing copia verborum, while it raises a\npresumption that, could we trace the history of words more fully, it\nwould account for far more.\n\nIn here examining interjectional and imitative sounds with their\nderivative words, as well as certain other parts of language of a more\nor less cognate character, I purpose to bring forward as far as possible\nnew evidence derived from the languages of savage and barbarous races.\nBy so doing it becomes practicable to use a check which in great measure\nstops the main source of uncertainty and error in such enquiries, the\nhabit of etymologizing words off-hand from expressive sounds, by the\nunaided and often flighty fancy of a philologer. By simply enlarging the\nsurvey of language, the province of the imagination is brought within\nnarrower limits. If several languages, which cannot be classed as\ndistinctly of the same family, unite in expressing some notion by a\nparticular sound which may fairly claim to be interjectional or\nimitative, their combined authority will go far to prove the claim a\njust one. For if it be objected that such words may have passed into the\ndifferent languages from a common source, of which the trace is for the\nmost part lost, this may be answered by the question, Why is there not a\nproportionate agreement between the languages in question throughout the\nfar larger mass of words which cannot pretend to be direct sound-words?\nIf several languages have independently chosen like words to express\nlike meanings, then we may reasonably suppose that we are not deluding\nourselves in thinking such words highly appropriate to their purpose.\nThey are words which answered the conditions of original language,\nconforming as they do to the saying of Thomas Aquinas, that the names of\nthings ought to agree with their natures, \u2018nomina debent naturis rerum\ncongruere.\u2019 Applied in such comparison, the languages of the lower races\ncontribute evidence of excellent quality to the problem. It will at the\nsame time and by the same proofs appear, that savages possess in a high\ndegree the faculty of uttering their minds directly in emotional tones\nand interjections, of going straight to nature to furnish themselves\nwith imitative sounds, including reproductions of their own direct\nemotional utterances, as means of expression of ideas, and of\nintroducing into their formal language words so produced. They have\nclearly thus far the means and power of producing language. In so far as\nthe theories under consideration account for the original formation of\nlanguage, they countenance the view that this formation took place among\nmankind in a savage state, and even, for anything appearing to the\ncontrary, in a still lower stage of culture than has survived to our\nday.[248]\n\nThe first step in such investigation is to gain a clear idea of the\nvarious elements of which spoken language is made up. These may be\nenumerated as gesture, expression of feature, emotional tone, emphasis,\nforce, speed, &c. of utterance, musical rhythm and intonation, and the\nformation of the vowels and consonants which are the skeleton of\narticulate speech.\n\nIn the common intercourse of men, speech is habitually accompanied by\ngesture, the hands, head, and body aiding and illustrating the spoken\nphrase. So far as we can judge, the visible gesture and the audible word\nhave been thus used in combination since times of most remote antiquity\nin the history of our race. It seems, however, that in the daily\nintercourse of the lower races, gesture holds a much more important\nplace than we are accustomed to see it fill, a position even encroaching\non that which articulate speech holds among ourselves. Mr. Bonwick\nconfirms by his experience Dr. Milligan\u2019s account of the Tasmanians as\nusing \u2018signs to eke out the meaning of monosyllabic expressions, and to\ngive force, precision, and character to vocal sounds.\u2019 Captain Wilson\nremarks on the use of gesticulation in modifying words in the Chinook\nJargon. There is confirmation to Spix and Martius\u2019 description of low\nBrazilian tribes completing by signs the meaning of their scanty\nsentences, thus making the words \u2018wood-go\u2019 serve to say \u2018I will go into\nthe wood,\u2019 by pointing the mouth like a snout in the direction meant.\nThe Rev. J. L. Wilson, describing the Grebo language of West Africa,\nremarks that they have personal pronouns, but seldom use them in\nconversation, leaving it to gesture to determine whether a verb is to be\ntaken in the first or second person; thus the words \u2018ni ne\u2019 will mean \u2018I\ndo it,\u2019 or \u2018you do it,\u2019 according to the significant gestures of the\nspeaker.[249] Beside such instances, it will hereafter be noticed that\nthe lower races, in counting, habitually use gesture-language for a\npurpose to which higher races apply word-language. To this prominent\ncondition of gesture as a means of expression among rude tribes, and to\nthe development of pantomime in public show and private intercourse\namong such peoples as the Neapolitans of our own day, the most extreme\ncontrast may be found in England, where, whether for good or ill,\nsuggestive pantomime is now reduced to so small a compass in social\ntalk, and even in public oratory.\n\nChanges of the bodily attitude, corresponding in their fine gradations\nwith changes of the feelings, comprise conditions of the surface of the\nbody, postures of the limbs, and also especially those expressive\nattitudes of the face to which our attention is particularly directed\nwhen we notice one another. The visible expression of the features is a\nsymptom which displays the speaker\u2019s state of mind, his feelings of\npleasure or disgust, of pride or humility, of faith or doubt, and so\nforth. Not that there is between the emotion and its bodily expression\nany originally intentional connexion. It is merely that a certain action\nof our physical machinery shows symptoms which we have learnt by\nexperience to refer to a mental cause, as we judge by seeing a man sweat\nor limp that he is hot or footsore. Blushing is caused by certain\nemotions, and among Europeans it is a visible expression or symptom of\nthem; not so among South American Indians, whose blushes, as Mr. David\nForbes points out, may be detected by the hand or a thermometer, but\nbeing concealed by the dark skin cannot serve as a visible sign of\nfeeling.[250] By turning these natural processes to account, men\ncontrive to a certain extent to put on particular physical expressions,\nfrowning or smiling for instance, in order to simulate the emotions\nwhich would naturally produce such expressions, or merely to convey the\nthought of such emotions to others. Now it is well known to every one\nthat physical expression by feature, &c., forming a part of the\nuniversal gesture-language, thus serves as an important adjunct to\nspoken language. It is not so obvious, but on examination will prove to\nbe true, that such expression by feature itself acts as a formative\npower in vocal language. Expression of countenance has an action beyond\nthat of mere visible gesture. The bodily attitude brought on by a\nparticular state of mind affects the position of the organs of speech,\nboth the internal larynx, &c., and the external features whose change\ncan be watched by the mere looker-on. Even though the expression of the\nspeaker\u2019s face may not be seen by the hearer, the effect of the whole\nbodily attitude of which it forms part is not thereby done away with.\nFor on the position thus taken by the various organs concerned in\nspeech, depends what I have here called \u2018emotional tone,\u2019 whereby the\nvoice carries direct expression of the speaker\u2019s feeling.\n\nThe ascertaining of the precise physical mode in which certain attitudes\nof the internal and external face come to correspond to certain moods of\nmind, is a physiological problem as yet little understood; but the fact\nthat particular expressions of face are accompanied by corresponding and\ndependent expressions of emotional tone, only requires an observer or a\nlooking-glass to prove it. The laugh made with a solemn, contemptuous,\nor sarcastic face, is quite different from that which comes from a\njoyous one; the _ah! oh! ho! hey!_ and so on, change their modulations\nto match the expression of countenance. The effect of the emotional tone\ndoes not even require fitness in the meaning of the spoken words, for\nnonsense or an unknown tongue may be made to convey, when spoken with\nexpressive intonation, the feelings which are displayed upon the\nspeaker\u2019s face. This expression may even be recognized in the dark by\nnoticing the tone it gives forth, while the forced character given by\nthe attempt to bring out a sound not matching even the outward play of\nthe features can hardly be hidden by the most expert ventriloquist, and\nin such forcing, the sound perceptibly drags the face into the attitude\nthat fits with it. The nature of communication by emotional tone seems\nto me to be somewhat on this wise. It does not appear that particular\ntones at all belong directly and of themselves to particular emotions,\nbut that their action depends on the vocal organs of the speaker and\nhearer. Other animals, having vocal organs different from man\u2019s, have\naccordingly, as we know, a different code of emotional tones. An\nalteration in man\u2019s vocal organs would bring a corresponding alteration\nin the effect of tone in expressing feeling; the tone which to us\nexpresses surprise or anger might come to express pleasure, and so\nforth. As it is, children learn by early experience that such and such a\ntone indicates such and such an emotion, and this they make out partly\nby finding themselves uttering such tones when their feelings have\nbrought their faces to the appropriate attitudes, and partly by\nobserving the expression of voice in others. At three or four years old\nthey are to be seen in the act of acquiring this knowledge, turning\nround to look at the speaker\u2019s face and gesture to make sure of the\nmeaning of the tone. But in later years this knowledge becomes so\nfamiliar that it is supposed to have been intuitive. Then, when men talk\ntogether, the hearer receives from each emotional tone an indication, a\nsignal, of the speaker\u2019s attitude of body, and through this of his state\nof mind. These he can recognize, and even reproduce in himself, as the\noperator at one end of a telegraphic wire can follow, by noticing his\nneedles, the action of his colleague at the other. In watching the\nprocess which thus enables one man to take a copy of another\u2019s emotions\nthrough their physical effects on his vocal tone, we may admire the\nperfection with which a means so simple answers an end so complex, and\napparently so remote.\n\nBy eliminating from speech all effects of gesture, of expression of\nface, and of emotional tone, we go far toward reducing it to that system\nof conventional articulate sounds which the grammarian and the\ncomparative philologist habitually consider as language. These\narticulate sounds are capable of being roughly set down in signs\nstanding for vowels and consonants, with the aid of accents and other\nsignificant marks; and they may then again be read aloud from these\nwritten signs, by any one who has learnt to give its proper sound to\neach letter.\n\nWhat vowels are, is a matter which has been for some years well\nunderstood.[251] They are compound musical tones such as, in the vox\nhumana stop of the organ, are sounded by reeds (vibrating tongues)\nfitted to organ-pipes of particular construction. The manner of\nformation of vowels by the voice is shortly this. There are situated in\nthe larynx a pair of vibrating membranes called the vocal chords, which\nmay be rudely imitated by stretching a piece of sheet india-rubber over\nthe open end of a tube, so as to form two half-covers to it, \u2018like the\nparchment of a drum split across the middle;\u2019 when the tube is blown\nthrough, the india-rubber flaps will vibrate as the vocal chords do in\nthe larynx, and give out a sound. In the human voice, the musical effect\nof the vibrating chords is increased by the cavity of the mouth, which\nacts as a resonator or sounding-box, and which also, by its shape at any\nmoment, modifies the musical \u2018quality\u2019 or \u2018timbre\u2019 of the sound\nproduced. This, not the less felt because its effects are not registered\nin musical notation, depends on the harmonic overtones accompanying the\nfundamental tone which alone musical notation takes account of. It makes\nthe difference between the same note on two instruments, flute and piano\nfor instance, while some instruments, as the violin, can give to one\nnote a wide variation of quality. To such quality the formation of\nvowels is due. This is perfectly shown by the common Jew\u2019s harp, which\nwhen struck can be made to utter the vowels a, e, i, o, u, &c., by\nsimply putting the mouth in the proper position for speaking these\nvowels. In this experiment the player\u2019s voice emits no sound, but the\nvibrating tongue of the Jew\u2019s harp placed in front of the mouth acts as\na substitute for the vocal chords, and the vowel-sounds are produced by\nthe various positions of the cavity of the mouth, modifying the quality\nof the note, by bringing out with different degrees of strength the\nseries of harmonic tones of which it is composed. As to musical theory,\nemotional tone and vowel-tone are connected. In fact, an emotional tone\nmay be defined as a vowel, whose particular musical quality is that\nproduced by the human vocal organs, when adjusted to a particular state\nof feeling.\n\nEuropeans, while using modulation of musical pitch as affecting the\nforce of words in a sentence, know nothing of making it alter the\ndictionary-meaning of a word. But this device is known elsewhere,\nespecially in South-East Asia, where rises and falls of tone, to some\nextent like those which serve us in conveying emphasis, question and\nanswer, &c., actually give different signification. Thus in Siamese,\n_h\u00e1_=to seek, _h\u00e3_=pestilence, _h\u00e0_=five. The consequence of this\nelaborate system of tone-accentuation is the necessity of an\naccumulation of expletive particles, to supply the place of the\noratorical or emphatic intonation, which being thus given over to the\ndictionary is lost for the grammar. Another consequence is, that the\nsystem of setting poetry to music becomes radically different from ours;\nto sing a Siamese song to a European tune makes the meaning of the\nsyllables alter according to their rise and fall in pitch, and turns\ntheir sense into the wildest nonsense.[252] In West Africa, again, the\nsame device appears: thus in Dahoman _so_=stick, _s\u00f3_=horse,\n_s\u00f2_=thunder; Yoruba, _b\u00e1_=with, _b\u00e0_=bend.[253] For practical purposes,\nthis linguistic music is hardly to be commended, but theoretically it is\ninteresting, as showing that man does not servilely follow an intuitive\nor inherited scheme of language, but works out in various ways the\nresources of sound as a means of expression.\n\nThe theory of consonants is much more obscure than that of vowels. They\nare not musical vibrations as vowels are, but noises accompanying them.\nTo the musician such noises as the rushing of the wind from the\norgan-pipe, the scraping of the violin, the sputtering of the flute, are\nsimply troublesome as interfering with his musical tones, and he takes\npains to diminish them as much as may be. But in the art of language\nnoises of this kind, far from being avoided, are turned to immense\naccount by being used as consonants, in combination with the musical\nvowels. As to the positions and movements of the vocal organs in\nproducing consonants, an excellent account with anatomical diagrams is\ngiven in Professor Max M\u00fcller\u2019s second series of Lectures. For the\npresent purpose of passing in review the various devices by which the\nlanguage-maker has contrived to make sound a means of expressing\nthought, perhaps no better illustration of their nature can be mentioned\nthan Sir Charles Wheatstone\u2019s account of his speaking machine;[254] for\none of the best ways of studying difficult phenomena is to see them\nartificially imitated. The instrument in question pronounced Latin,\nFrench, and Italian words well: it could say, \u2018Je vous aime de tout mon\nc\u0153ur,\u2019 \u2018Leopoldus Secundus Romanorum Imperator,\u2019 and so forth, but it\nwas not so successful with German. As to the vowels, they were of course\nsimply sounded by suitable reeds and pipes. To affect them with\nconsonants, contrivances were arranged to act like the human organs.\nThus _p_ was made by suddenly removing the operator\u2019s hand from the\nmouth of the figure, and _b_ in the same way, except that the mouth was\nnot quite covered, while an outlet like the nostrils was used in forming\n_m_; _f_ and _v_ were rendered by modifying the shape of the mouth by a\nhand; air was made to rush through small tubes to produce the sibilants\n_s_ and _sh_; and the liquids _r_ and _l_ were sounded by the action of\ntremulous reeds. As Wheatstone remarks, the most important use of such\ningenious mechanical imitations of speech may be to fix and preserve an\naccurate register of the pronunciation of different languages. A\nperfectly arranged speaking machine would in fact represent for us that\nframework of language which consists of mere vowels and consonants,\nthough without most of those expressive adjuncts which go to make up the\nconversation of speaking men.\n\nOf vowels and consonants capable of being employed in language, man is\nable to pronounce and distinguish an enormous variety. But this great\nstock of possible sounds is nowhere brought into use altogether. Each\nlanguage or dialect of the world is found in practice to select a\nlimited series of definite vowels and consonants, keeping with tolerable\nexactness to each, and thus choosing what we may call its phonetic\nalphabet. Neglecting such minor differences as occur in the speech of\nindividuals or small communities, each dialect of the world may be said\nto have its own phonetic system, and these phonetic systems vary widely.\nOur vowels, for instance, differ much from those of French and Dutch.\nFrench knows nothing of either of the sounds which we write as _th_ in\n_thin_ and _that_, while the Castilian lisped _c_, the so-called\n_ceceo_, is a third consonant which we must again make shift to write as\n_th_, though it is quite distinct in sound from both our own. It is\nquite a usual thing for us to find foreign languages wanting letters\neven near in sound to some of ours, while possessing others unfamiliar\nto ourselves. Among such cases are the Chinese difficulty in pronouncing\n_r_, and the want of _s_ and _f_ in Australian dialects. When foreigners\ntried to teach the Mohawks, who have no labials in their language, to\npronounce words with _p_ and _b_ in them, they protested that it was too\nridiculous to expect people to shut their mouths to speak; and the\nPortuguese discoverers of Brazil, remarking that the natives had neither\n_f_, _l_, nor _r_ in their language, neatly described them as a people\nwith neither _f\u00e9_, _ley_, nor _rey_, neither faith, law, nor king. It\nmay happen, too, that sounds only used by some nations as interjectional\nnoises, unwritten and unwriteable, shall be turned to account by others\nin their articulate language. Something of this kind occurs with the\nnoises called \u2018clicks.\u2019 Such sounds are familiar to us as interjections;\nthus the lateral click made in the cheek (and usually in the left cheek)\nis continually used in driving horses, while varieties of the dental and\npalatal click made with the tongue against the teeth and the roof of the\nmouth, are common in the nursery as expressions of surprise, reproof, or\nsatisfaction. Thus, too, the natives of Tierra del Fuego express \u2018no\u2019 by\na peculiar cluck, as do also the Turks, who accompany it with the\ngesture of throwing back the head; and it appears from the accounts of\ntravellers that the clicks of surprise and admiration among the natives\nof Australia are much like those we hear at home. But though here these\nclicking noises are only used interjectionally, it is well known that\nSouth African races have taken such sounds up into their articulate\nspeech and have made, as we may say, letters of them. The very name of\nHottentots, applied to the Namaquas and other kindred tribes, appears to\nbe not a native name (as Peter Kolb thought) but a rude imitative word\ncoined by the Dutch to express the clicking \u2018_hot_ en _tot_,\u2019 and the\nterm _Hottentotism_ has been thence adopted as a medical description of\none of the varieties of stammering. North-West America is another\ndistrict of the world distinguished for the production of strange\nclucking, gurgling, and grunting letters, difficult or impossible to\nEuropean voices. Moreover, there are many sounds capable of being used\nin articulate speech, varieties of chirping, whistling, blowing, and\nsucking noises, of which some are familiar to our own use as calls to\nanimals, or interjectional noises of contempt or surprise, but which no\ntribe is known to have brought into their alphabet. With all the vast\nphonetic variety of known languages, the limits of possible utterance\nare far from being reached.\n\nUp to a certain point we can understand the reasons which have guided\nthe various tribes of mankind in the selection of their various\nalphabets; ease of utterance to the speaker, combined with distinctness\nof effect to the hearer, have been undoubtedly among the principal of\nthe selecting causes. We may fairly connect with the close uniformity of\nmen\u2019s organs of speech all over the world, the general similarity which\nprevails in the phonetic systems of the most different languages, and\nwhich gives us the power of roughly writing down so large a proportion\nof any one language by means of an alphabet intended for any other. But\nwhile we thus account by physical similarity for the existence of a kind\nof natural alphabet common to mankind, we must look to other causes to\ndetermine the selection of sounds used in different languages, and to\naccount for those remarkable courses of change which go on in languages\nof a common stock, producing in Europe such variations of one original\nword as _pater_, _father_, _vater_, or in the islands of Polynesia\noffering us the numeral 5 under the strangely-varied forms of _lima_,\n_rima_, _dima_, _nima_, and _hima_. Changes of this sort have acted so\nwidely and regularly, that since the enunciation of Grimm\u2019s law their\nstudy has become a main part of philology. Though their causes are as\nyet so obscure, we may at least argue that such wide and definite\noperations cannot be due to chance or arbitrary fancy, but must be the\nresult of laws as wide and definite as themselves.\n\nLet us now suppose a book to be written with a tolerably correct\nalphabet, for instance an ordinary Italian book, or an English one in\nsome good system of phonetic letters. To suppose English written in the\nmakeshift alphabet which we still keep in use, would be of course to\ncomplicate the matter in hand with a new and needless difficulty. If,\nthen, the book be written in a sufficient alphabet, and handed to a\nreader, his office will by no means stop short at rendering back into\narticulate sounds the vowels and consonants before him, as though he\nwere reading over proofs for the press. For the emotional tone just\nspoken of has dropped out in writing down the words in letters, and it\nwill be the reader\u2019s duty to guess from the meaning of the words what\nthis tone should be, and to put it in again accordingly. He has moreover\nto introduce emphasis, whether by accent or stress, on certain syllables\nor words, thereby altering their effect in the sentence; if he says, for\nexample, \u2018I never sold you that horse,\u2019 an emphasis on any one of these\nsix words will alter the import of the whole phrase. Now, in emphatic\npronunciation two distinct processes are to be remarked. The effect\nproduced by changes in loudness and duration of words is directly\nimitative; it is a mere gesture made with the voice, as we may notice by\nthe way in which any one will speak of \u2018a _short sharp_ answer,\u2019 \u2018a\n_long weary_ year,\u2019 \u2018a _loud burst_ of music,\u2019 \u2018a _gentle gliding_\nmotion,\u2019 as compared with the like manner in which the gesture-language\nwould adapt its force and speed to the kind of action to be represented.\nWritten language can hardly convey but by the context the striking\neffects which our imitative faculty adds to spoken language, in our\ncontinual endeavour to make the sound of each word we speak a sort of\necho to its sense. We see this in the difference between writing and\ntelling the little story of the man who was worried by being talked to\nabout \u2018good books.\u2019 \u2018Do you mean,\u2019 he asked, speaking shortly with a\nface of strong firm approval, \u2018_good_ books?\u2019 \u2018or,\u2019 with a drawl and a\nfatuous-benevolent simper, \u2018_goo-d_ books?\u2019 Musical accent\n(_accentus_,[255] musical tone) is turned to account as a means of\nemphasis, as when we give prominence to a particular syllable or word in\na sentence by raising or depressing it a semi-tone or more. The reader\nhas to divide his sentences with pauses, being guided in this to some\nextent by stops; the rhythmic measure in which he will utter prose as\nwell as poetry is not without its effect; and he has again to introduce\nmusic by speaking each sentence to a kind of imperfect melody. Professor\nHelmholtz endeavours to write down in musical notes how a German with a\nbass voice, speaking on B flat, might say, \u2018Ich bin spatzieren\ngegangen.\u2014Bist du spatzieren gegangen?\u2019 falling a fourth (to F) at the\nend of the affirmative sentence, and rising a fifth (to f) in asking the\nquestion, thus ranging through an octave.[256] When an English speaker\ntries to illustrate in his own language the rising and falling tones of\nSiamese vowels, he compares them with the English ones of question and\nanswer, as in \u2018Will you go? Yes.\u2019[257] The rules of this imperfect\nmusical intonation in ordinary conversation have been as yet but little\nstudied. But as a means of giving solemnity and pathos to language, it\nhas been more fully developed and even systematized under exact rules of\nmelody, and we thus have on the one hand ecclesiastical intoning and the\nless conventional half-singing so often to be heard in religious\nmeetings, and on the other the ancient and modern theatrical recitative.\nBy such intermediate stages we may cross the wide interval from spoken\nprose, with the musical pitch of its vowels so carelessly kept, and so\nobscured by consonants as to be difficult even to determine, to full\nsong, in which the consonants are as much as possible suppressed, that\nthey may not interfere with the precise and expressive music of the\nvowels.\n\nProceeding now to survey such parts of the vocabulary of mankind as\nappear to have an intelligible origin in the direct expression of sense\nby sound, let us first examine Interjections. When Horne Tooke spoke, in\nwords often repeated since, of \u2018the brutish inarticulate Interjection,\u2019\nhe certainly meant to express his contempt for a mode of expression\nwhich lay outside his own too narrow view of language. But the epithets\nare in themselves justifiable enough. Interjections are undoubtedly to a\ncertain extent \u2018brutish\u2019 in their analogy to the cries of animals; and\nthe fact gives them an especial interest to modern observers, who are\nthus enabled to trace phenomena belonging to the mental state of the\nlower animals up into the midst of the most highly cultivated human\nlanguage. It is also true that they are \u2018inarticulate,\u2019 so far at least\nthat the systems of consonants and vowels recognized by grammarians\nbreak down more hopelessly than elsewhere in the attempt to write down\ninterjections. Alphabetic writing is far too incomplete and clumsy an\ninstrument to render their peculiar and variously-modulated sounds, for\nwhich a few conventionally-written words do duty poorly enough. In\nreading aloud, and sometimes even in the talk of those who have learnt\nrather from books than from the living world, we may hear these awkward\nimitations, _ahem!_ _hein!_ _tush!_ _tut!_ _pshaw!_ now carrying the\nunquestioned authority of words printed in a book, and reproduced letter\nfor letter with a most amusing accuracy. But when Horne Tooke fastens\nupon an unfortunate Italian grammarian and describes him as \u2018The\nindustrious and exact Cinonio, who does not appear ever to have had a\nsingle glimpse of reason,\u2019 it is not easy to see what the pioneer of\nEnglish philology could find to object to in Cinonio\u2019s obviously true\nassertion, that a single interjection, _ah!_ or _ahi!_ is capable of\nexpressing more than twenty different emotions or intentions, such as\npain, entreaty, threatening, sighing, disdain, according to the tone in\nwhich it is uttered.[258] The fact that interjections do thus utter\nfeelings is quite beyond dispute, and the philologist\u2019s concern with\nthem is on the one hand to study their action in expressing emotion, and\non the other to trace their passage into more fully-formed words, such\nas have their place in connected syntax and form part of logical\npropositions.\n\nIn the first place, however, it is necessary to separate from proper\ninterjections the many sense-words which, often kept up in a mutilated\nor old-fashioned guise, come so close to them both in appearance and in\nuse. Among classic examples are \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5! \u03b4\u03b5\u1fe6\u03c4\u03b5! _age!_ _macte!_ Such a word\nis _hail!_ which as the Gothic Bible shows, was originally an adjective,\n\u2018whole, hale, prosperous,\u2019 used vocatively, just as the Italians cry\n_bravo!_ _brava!_ _bravi!_ _brave!_ When the African negro cries out in\nfear or wonder _m\u00e1m\u00e1! m\u00e1m\u00e1!_[259] he might be thought to be uttering a\nreal interjection, \u2018a word used to express some passion or emotion of\nthe mind,\u2019 as Lindley Murray has it, but in fact he is simply calling,\ngrown-up baby as he is, for his mother; and the very same thing has been\nnoticed among Indians of Upper California, who as an expression of pain\ncry, _an\u00e1!_ that is \u2018mother.\u2019[260] Other exclamations consist of a pure\ninterjection combined with a pronoun, as \u03bf\u1f34\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9! _oim\u00e8!_ _ah me!_ or with\nan adjective, as _alas!_ _h\u00e9las!_ (ah weary!) With what care\ninterjections should be sifted, to avoid the risk of treating as\noriginal elementary sounds of language what are really nothing but\nsense-words, we may judge from the way in which the common English\nexclamation _well! well!_ approaches the genuine interjectional sound in\nthe Coptic expression \u2018to make _ouelouele_,\u2019 which signifies to wail,\nLatin _ululare_. Still better, we may find a learned traveller in the\n18th century quite seriously remarking, apropos of the old Greek\nbattle-shout, \u1f00\u03bb\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac! \u1f00\u03bb\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac! that the Turks to this day call out _Allah!\nAllah! Allah!_ upon the like occasion.[261]\n\nThe calls to animals customary in different countries[262] are to a\ngreat extent interjectional in their use, but to attempt to explain them\nas a whole is to step upon as slippery ground as lies within the range\nof philology. Sometimes they may be in fact pure interjections, like the\n_sch\u00fb sch\u00fb!_ mentioned as an old German cry to scare birds, as we should\nsay _sh sh!_, or the _a\u00e1!_ with which the Indians of Brazil call their\ndogs. Or they may be set down as simple imitations of the animal\u2019s own\ncries, as the _clucking_ to call fowls in our own farm-yards, or the\nAustrian calls of _pi pi!_ or _tiet tiet!_ to chickens, or the Swabian\n_kauter kaut!_ to turkeys, or the shepherd\u2019s _baaing_ to call sheep in\nIndia. In other cases, however, they may be sense-words more or less\nbroken down, as when the creature is spoken to by a sound which seems\nmerely taken from its own common name. If an English countryman meets a\nstray sheep-dog, he will simply call to him _ship! ship!_ So _sch\u00e4p\nsch\u00e4p!_ is an Austrian call to sheep, and _k\u00f6ss kuhel k\u00f6ss!_ to cows. In\nGerman districts _gus gus!_ _gusch gusch!_ _g\u00f6s g\u00f6s!_ are set down as\ncalls to geese; and when we notice that the Bohemian peasant calls\n_husy!_ to them, we remember that the name for goose in his language is\n_husa_, a word familiar to English ears in the name of John Huss. The\nBohemian, again, will call to his dog _ps ps!_ but then _pes_ means\n\u2018dog.\u2019 Other sense-words addressed to animals break down by long\nrepetition into mutilated forms. When we are told that the _to to!_ with\nwhich a Portuguese calls a dog is short for _toma toma!_ (_i.e._, \u2018take\ntake!\u2019) which tells him to come and take his food, we admit the\nexplanation as plausible; and the _coop coop!_ which a cockney might so\neasily mistake for a pure interjection, is only \u2018Come up! come up!\u2019\n\n                \u2018Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot,\n                Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,\n                  Jetty, to the milking shed.\u2019\n\nBut I cannot offer a plausible guess at the origin of such calls as _h\u00fcf\nh\u00fcf!_ to horses, _h\u00fchl h\u00fchl!_ to geese, _deckel deckel!_ to sheep. It is\nfortunate for etymologists that such trivial little words have not an\nimportance proportioned to the difficulty of clearing up their origin.\nThe word _puss!_ raises an interesting philological problem. An English\nchild calling _puss puss!_ is very likely keeping up the trace of the\nold Keltic name for the cat, Irish _pus_, Erse _pusag_, Gaelic _puis_.\nSimilar calls are known elsewhere in Europe (as in Saxony, _p\u00fbs p\u00fbs!_),\nand there is some reason to think that the cat, which came to us from\nthe East, brought with it one of its names, which is still current\nthere, Tamil _p\u00fbsei!_ Afghan _pusha_, Persian _pushak_, &c. Mr. Wedgwood\nfinds an origin for the call in an imitation of the cat\u2019s spitting, and\nremarks that the Servians cry _pis!_ to drive a cat away, while the\nAlbanians use a similar sound to call it. The way in which the cry of\n_puss!_ has furnished a name for the cat itself, comes out curiously in\ncountries where the animal has been lately introduced by Englishmen.\nThus _boosi_ is the recognized word for cat in the Tonga Islands, no\ndoubt from Captain Cook\u2019s time. Among Indian tribes of North-West\nAmerica, _pwsh_, _pish-pish_, appear in native languages with the\nmeaning of cat; and not only is the European cat called a _puss puss_ in\nthe Chinook Jargon, but in the same curious dialect the word is applied\nto a native beast, the cougar, now called \u2018hyas _puss-puss_,\u2019 _i.e._,\n\u2018great cat.\u2019[263]\n\nThe derivation of names of animals in this manner from calls to them,\nmay perhaps not have been unfrequent. It appears that _huss!_ is a cry\nused in Switzerland to set dogs on to fight, as _s\u2014s!_ might be in\nEngland, and that the Swiss call a dog _huss_ or _hauss_, possibly from\nthis. We know the cry of _dill!_ _dilly!_ as a recognized call to ducks\nin England, and it is difficult to think it a corruption of any English\nword or phrase, for the Bohemians also call _dlidli!_ to their ducks.\nNow, though _dill_ or _dilly_ may not be found in our dictionaries as\nthe name for a duck, yet the way in which Hood can use it as such in one\nof his best-known comic poems, shows perfectly the easy and natural step\nby which such transitions can be made:\u2014\n\n                   \u2018For Death among the water-lilies,\n                   Cried \u201cDuc ad me\u201d to all her dillies.\u2019\n\nIn just the same way, because _gee!_ is a usual call of the English\nwaggoner to his horses, the word _gee-gee_ has become a familiar nursery\nnoun meaning a horse. And neither in such nursery words, nor in words\ncoined in jest, is the evidence bearing on the origin of language to be\nset aside as worthless; for it may be taken as a maxim of ethnology,\nthat what is done among civilized men in jest, or among civilized\nchildren in the nursery, is apt to find its analogue in the serious\nmental effort of savage, and therefore of prim\u00e6val tribes.\n\nDrivers\u2019 calls to their beasts, such as this _gee!_ _gee-ho!_ to urge on\nhorses, and _weh!_ _woh!_ to stop them, form part of the vernacular of\nparticular districts. The _geho!_ perhaps came to England in the\nNorman-French, for it is known in France, and appears in the Italian\ndictionary as _gio!_ The traveller who has been hearing the drivers in\nthe Grisons stop their horses with a long _br-r-r!_ may cross a pass and\nhear on the other side a _h\u00fc-\u00fc-\u00fc!_ instead. The ploughman\u2019s calls to\nturn the leaders of the team to right and left have passed into proverb.\nIn France they say of a stupid clown \u2018Il n\u2019entend ni \u00e0 _dia!_ ni \u00e0\n_hurhaut!_\u2019 and the corresponding Platt-Deutsch phrase is \u2018He weet nich\n_hutt!_ noch _hoh!_\u2019 So there is a regular language to camels, as\nCaptain Burton remarks on his journey to Mekka: _ikh ikh!_ makes them\nkneel, _y\u00e1hh y\u00e1hh!_ urges them on, _hai hai!_ induces caution, and so\nforth. In the formation of these quaint expressions, two causes have\nbeen at work. The sounds seem sometimes thoroughly interjectional, as\nthe Arab _hai!_ of caution, or the French _hue!_ North German _j\u00f6!_\nWhatever their origin, they may be made to carry their sense by\nimitative tones expressive to the ear of both horse and man, as any one\nwill say who hears the contrast between the short and sharp high-pitched\n_h\u00fcp!_ which tells the Swiss horse to go faster, and the long-drawn\n_h\u00fc-\u00fc-\u00fc-\u00fc!_ which brings him to a stand. Also, the way in which common\nsense-words are taken up into calls like _gee-up!_ _woh-back!_ shows\nthat we may expect to find various old broken fragments of formal\nlanguage in the list, and such on inspection we find accordingly. The\nfollowing lines are quoted by Halliwell from the Micro-Cynicon (1599):\u2014\n\n              \u2018A base borne issue of a baser syer,\n              Bred in a cottage, wandering in the myer,\n              With nailed shooes and whipstaffe in his hand,\n              Who with a _hey_ and _ree_ the beasts command.\u2019\n\nThis _ree!_ is equivalent to \u2018right\u2019 (riddle-me-ree = riddle me right),\nand tells the leader of the team to bear to the right hand. The _hey!_\nmay correspond with _heit!_ or _camether!_ which call him to bear\n\u2018hither,\u2019 _i.e._, to the left. In Germany _har!_ _h\u00e4r!_ _har-\u00fch!_ are\nlikewise the same as \u2018her,\u2019 \u2018hither, to the left.\u2019 So _swude!_\n_schwude!_ _zwuder!_ \u2018to the left,\u2019 are of course simply \u2018zuwider,\u2019 \u2018on\nthe contrary way.\u2019 Pairs of calls for \u2018right\u2019 and \u2018left\u2019 in\nGerman-speaking countries are _hot!_\u2014_har!_ and _hott!_\u2014_wist!_ This\n_wist!_ is an interesting example of the keeping up of ancient words in\nsuch popular tradition. It is evidently a mutilated form of an old\nGerman word for the left hand, _winistr\u00e2_, Anglo-Saxon _winstre_, a name\nlong since forgotten by modern High German, as by our own modern\nEnglish.[264]\n\nAs quaint a mixture of words and interjectional cries as I have met\nwith, is in the great French Encyclop\u00e6dia,[265] which gives a minute\ndescription of the hunter\u2019s craft, and prescribes exactly what is to be\ncried to the hounds under all possible contingencies of the chase. If\nthe creatures understood grammar and syntax, the language could not be\nmore accurately arranged for their ears. Sometimes we have what seem\npure interjectional cries. Thus, to encourage the hounds to work, the\nhuntsman is to call to them _h\u00e0 halle halle halle!_ while to bring them\nup before they are uncoupled it is prescribed that he shall call _hau\nhau!_ or _hau tahaut!_ and when they are uncoupled he is to change his\ncry to _hau la y la la y la tayau!_ a call which suggests the Norman\noriginal of the English _tally-ho!_ With cries of this kind plain French\nwords are intermixed, _h\u00e0 bellement l\u00e0 ila, l\u00e0 ila, hau valet!_\u2014_hau\nl\u2019ami, tau tau apr\u00e8s apr\u00e8s, \u00e0 route \u00e0 route!_ and so on. And sometimes\nwords have broken down into calls whose sense is not quite gone, like\nthe \u2018vois le ci\u2019 and the \u2018vois le ce l\u2019est\u2019 which are still to be\ndistinguished in the shout which is to tell the hunters that the stag\nthey have been chasing has made a return, _vauleci revari vaulecelez!_\nBut the drollest thing in the treatise is the grave set of English words\n(in very Gallic shape) with which English dogs are to be spoken to,\nbecause, as the author says, \u2018there are many English hounds in France,\nand it is difficult to get them to work when you speak to them in an\nunknown tongue, that is, in other terms than they have been trained to.\u2019\nTherefore, to call them, the huntsman is to cry _here do-do ho ho!_ to\nget them back to the right track he is to say _houpe boy, houpe boy!_\nwhen there are several on ahead of the rest of the pack, he is to ride\nup to them and cry _saf me boy! saf me boy!_ and lastly, if they are\nobstinate and will not stop, he is to make them go back with a shout of\n_cobat, cobat!_\n\nHow far the lower animals may attach any inherent meaning to\ninterjectional sounds is a question not easy to answer. But it is plain\nthat in most of the cases mentioned here they only understand them as\nrecognized signals which have a meaning by regular association, as when\nthey remember that they are fed with one noise and driven away with\nanother, and they also pay attention to the gestures which accompany the\ncries. Thus the well-known Spanish way of calling the cat is _miz miz!_\nwhile _zape zape!_ is used to drive it away; and the writer of an old\ndictionary maintains that there can be no real difference between these\nwords except by custom, for, he declares, he has heard that in a certain\nmonastery where they kept very handsome cats, the brother in charge of\nthe refectory hit upon the device of calling _zape zape!_ to them when\nhe gave them their food, and then he drove them away with a stick,\ncrying angrily _miz miz_; and this of course prevented any stranger from\ncalling and stealing them, for only he and the cats knew the\nsecret![266] To philologists, the manner in which such calls to animals\nbecome customary in particular districts illustrates the consensus by\nwhich the use of words is settled. Each case of the kind indicates that\na word has prevailed by selection among a certain society of men, and\nthe main reasons of words holding their ground within particular limits,\nthough it is so difficult to assign them exactly in each case, are\nprobably inherent fitness in the first place, and traditional\ninheritance in the second.\n\nWhen the ground has been cleared of obscure or mutilated sense-words,\nthere remains behind a residue of real sound-words, or pure\ninterjections. It has long and reasonably been considered that the place\nin history of these expressions is a very primitive one. Thus De Brosses\ndescribes them as necessary and natural words, common to all mankind,\nand produced by the combination of man\u2019s conformation with the interior\naffections of his mind. One of the best means of judging the relation\nbetween interjectional utterances and the feelings they express, is to\ncompare the voices of the lower animals with our own. To a considerable\nextent there is a similarity. As their bodily and mental structure has\nan analogy with our own, so they express their minds by sounds which\nhave to our ears a certain fitness for what they appear to mean. It is\nso with the bark, the howl, and the whine of the dog, the hissing of\ngeese, the purring of cats, the crowing and clucking of cocks and hens.\nBut in other cases, as with the hooting of owls and the shrieks of\nparrots and many other birds, we cannot suppose that these sounds are\nintended to utter anything like the melancholy or pain which such cries\nfrom a human being would be taken to convey. There are many animals that\nnever utter any cry but what, according to our notions of the meaning of\nsounds, would express rage or discomfort; how far are the roars and\nhowls of wild beasts to be thus interpreted? We might as well imagine\nthe tuning violin to be in pain, or the moaning wind to express sorrow.\nThe connexion between interjection and emotion depending on the physical\nstructure of the animal which utters or hears the sound, it follows that\nthe general similarity of interjectional utterance among all the\nvarieties of the human race is an important manifestation of their close\nphysical and intellectual unity.\n\nInterjectional sounds uttered by man for the expression of his own\nfeelings serve also as signs indicating these feelings to another. A\nlong list of such interjections, common to races speaking the most\nwidely various languages, might be set down in a rough way as\nrepresenting the sighs, groans, moans, cries, shrieks, and growls by\nwhich man gives utterance to various of his feelings. Such for instance,\nare some of the many sounds for which _ah!_ _oh!_ _ahi!_ _aie!_ are the\ninexpressive written representatives; such is the sigh which is written\ndown in the Wolof language of Africa as _hhihhe!_ in English as\n_heigho!_ in Greek and Latin as \u1f12 \u1f12! \u1f12 \u1f12! _heu!_ _eheu!_ Thus the\nopen-mouthed _wah wah!_ of astonishment, so common in the East,\nreappears in America in the _hwah!_ _hwah-wa!_ of the Chinook Jargon;\nand the kind of groan which is represented in European languages by\n_weh!_ _ouais!_ \u03bf\u1f50\u03b1\u03af! _vae!_ is given in Coptic by _ouae!_ in Galla by\n_wayo!_ in the Ossetic of the Caucasus by _voy!_ among the Indians of\nBritish Columbia by _wo\u012b!_ Where the interjections taken down in the\nvocabularies of other languages differ from those recognized in our own,\nwe at any rate appreciate them and see how they carry their meaning.\nThus with the Malagasy _u-u!_ of pleasure, the North-American Indian\u2019s\noften-described guttural _ugh!_ the _kwish!_ of contempt in the Chinook\nJargon, the Tunguz _yo yo!_ of pain, the Irish _wb wb!_ of distress, the\nnative Brazilian\u2019s _teh teh!_ of wonder and reverence, the _hai-yah!_ so\nwell known in the Pigeon-English of the Chinese ports, and even, to take\nan extreme case, the interjections of surprise among the Algonquin\nIndians, where men say _tiau!_ and women _nyau!_ It is much the same\nwith expressions which are not uttered for the speaker\u2019s satisfaction,\nbut are calls addressed to another. Thus the Siamese call of _h\u0113!_ the\nHebrew _he! ha!_ for \u2018lo! behold!\u2019 the _h\u00f3i!_ of the Clallam Indians for\n\u2018stop!\u2019 the Lummi _h\u00e1i!_ for \u2018hold, enough!\u2019\u2014these and others like them\nbelong just as much to English. Another class of interjections are such\nas any one conversant with the gesture-signs of savages and deaf-mutes\nwould recognize as being themselves gesture signs, made with vocal\nsound, in short, voice-gestures. The sound _m\u2019m, m\u2019n_, made with the\nlips closed, is the obvious expression of the man who tries to speak,\nbut cannot. Even the deaf-and-dumb child, though he cannot hear the\nsound of his own voice, makes this noise to show that he is dumb, that\nhe is _mu mu_, as the Vei negroes of West Africa would say. To the\nspeaking man, the sound which we write as _mum!_ says plainly enough\n\u2018hold your tongue!\u2019 \u2018_mum\u2019s_ the word!\u2019 and in accordance with this\nmeaning has served to form various imitative words, of which a type is\nTahitian _mamu_, to be silent. Often made with a slight effort which\naspirates it, and with more or less continuance, this sound becomes what\nmay be indicated as _\u2018m_, _\u2018n_, _h\u2019m_, _h\u2019n_, &c., interjections which\nare conventionally written down as words, _hem!_ _ahem!_ _hein!_ Their\nprimary sense seems in any case that of hesitation to speak, of \u2018humming\nand hawing,\u2019 but this serves with a varied intonation to express such\nhesitation or refraining from articulate words as belongs either to\nsurprise, doubt or enquiry, approbation or contempt. In the vocabulary\nof the Yorubas of West Africa, the nasal interjection _hu\u00f1_ is rendered,\njust as it might be in English, as \u2018fudge!\u2019 Rochefort describes the\nCaribs listening in reverent silence to their chief\u2019s discourse, and\ntestifying their approval with a _hun-hun!_ just as in his time (17th\ncentury) an English congregation would have saluted a popular\npreacher.[267] The gesture of blowing, again, is a familiar expression\nof contempt and disgust, and when vocalized gives the labial\ninterjections which are written _pah!_ _bah!_ _pugh!_ _pooh!_ in Welsh\n_pw!_ in Low Latin _puppup!_ and set down by travellers among the\nsavages in Australia as _pooh!_ These interjections correspond with the\nmass of imitative words which express blowing, such as Malay _puput_, to\nblow. The labial gestures of blowing pass into those of spitting, of\nwhich one kind gives the dental interjection _t\u2019 t\u2019 t\u2019!_ which is\nwritten in English or Dutch _tut tut!_ and that this is no mere fancy, a\nnumber of imitative verbs of various countries will serve to show,\nTahitian _tutua_, to spit, being a typical instance.\n\nThe place of interjectional utterance in savage intercourse is well\nshown in Cranz\u2019s description. The Greenlanders, he says, especially the\nwomen, accompany many words with mien and glances, and he who does not\nwell apprehend this may easily miss the sense. Thus when they affirm\nanything with pleasure they suck down air by the throat with a certain\nsound, and when they deny anything with contempt or horror, they turn up\nthe nose and give a slight sound through it. And when they are out of\nhumour, one must understand more from their gestures than their\nwords.[268] Interjection and gesture combine to form a tolerable\npractical means of intercourse, as where the communication between\nFrench and English troops in the Crimea is described as \u2018consisting\nlargely of such interjectional utterances, reiterated with expressive\nemphasis and considerable gesticulation.\u2019[269] This description well\nbrings before us in actual life a system of effective human intercourse,\nin which there has not yet arisen the use of those articulate sounds\ncarrying their meaning by tradition, which are the inherited words of\nthe dictionary.\n\nWhen, however, we look closely into these inherited sense-words\nthemselves, we find that interjectional sounds have actually had more or\nless share in their formation. Not stopping short at the function\nascribed to them by grammarians, of standing here and there outside a\nlogical sentence, the interjections have also served as radical sounds\nout of which verbs, substantives, and other parts of speech have been\nshaped. In tracing the progress of interjections upward into fully\ndeveloped language, we begin with sounds merely expressing the speaker\u2019s\nactual feelings. When, however, expressive sounds like _ah!_ _ugh!_\n_pooh!_ are uttered not to exhibit the speaker\u2019s actual feelings at the\nmoment, but only in order to suggest to another the thought of\nadmiration or disgust, then such interjections have little or nothing to\ndistinguish them from fully formed words. The next step is to trace the\ntaking up of such sounds into the regular forms of ordinary grammar.\nFamiliar instances of such formations may be found among ourselves in\nnursery language, where to _woh_ is found in use with the meaning of to\nstop, or in that real though hardly acknowledged part of the English\nlanguage to which belong such verbs as to _boo-hoo_. Among the most\nobvious of such words are those which denote the actual utterance of an\ninterjection, or pass thence into some closely allied meaning. Thus the\nFijian women\u2019s cry of lamentation _oile!_ becomes the verb _oile_ \u2018to\nbewail,\u2019 _oile-taka_ \u2018to lament for\u2019 (the men cry _ule!_); now this is\nin perfect analogy with such words as _ululare_, to _wail_. With\ndifferent grammatical terminations, another sound produces the Zulu verb\n_gigiteka_ and its English equivalent to _giggle_. The Galla _iya_, \u2018to\ncry, scream, give the battle-cry\u2019 has its analogues in Greek \u1f30\u03ac, \u1f30\u03ae, \u2018a\ncry,\u2019 \u1f30\u03ae\u00ef\u03bf\u03c2 \u2018wailing, mournful,\u2019 &c. Good cases may be taken from a\ncurious modern dialect with a strong propensity to the use of obvious\nsound-words, the Chinook Jargon of North-West America. Here we find\nadopted from an Indian dialect the verb to _kish-kish_, that is, \u2018to\ndrive cattle or horses\u2019; _humm_ stands for the word \u2018stink,\u2019 verb or\nnoun; and the laugh, _heehee_, becomes a recognized term meaning fun or\namusement, as in _mamook heehee_, \u2018to amuse\u2019 (_i.e._, \u2018to make\n_heehee_\u2019) and _heehee house_, \u2018a tavern.\u2019 In Hawaii, _aa_ is \u2018to\ninsult;\u2019 in the Tonga Islands, _\u00fai!_ is at once the exclamation \u2018fie!\u2019\nand the verb \u2018to cry out against.\u2019 In New Zealand, _h\u00e9!_ is an\ninterjection denoting surprise at a mistake, _h\u00e9_ as a noun or verb\nmeaning \u2018error, mistake, to err, to go astray.\u2019 In the Quich\u00e9 language\nof Guatemala, the verbs _ay_, _oy_, _boy_, express the idea of \u2018to call\u2019\nin different ways. In the Carajas language of Brazil, we may guess an\ninterjectional origin in the adjective ei, \u2018sorrowful,\u2019 and can scarcely\nfail to see a derivation from expressive sound in the verb _hai-hai_ \u2018to\nrun away\u2019 (the word _aie-aie_, used to mean \u2018an omnibus\u2019 in modern\nFrench slang, is said to be a comic allusion to the cries of the\npassengers whose toes are trodden on). The Camacan Indians, when they\nwish to express the notion of \u2018much\u2019 or \u2018many,\u2019 hold out their fingers\nand say _hi_. As this is an ordinary savage gesture expressing\nmultitude, it seems likely that the _hi_ is a mere interjection,\nrequiring the visible sign to convey the full meaning.[270] In the\nQuichua language of Peru, _alalau!_ is an interjection of complaint at\ncold, whence the verb _alalau\u00f1ini_, \u2018to complain of the cold.\u2019 At the\nend of each strophe of the Peruvian hymns to the Sun was sung the\ntriumphant exclamation _haylli!_ and with this sound are connected the\nverbs _hayllini_ \u2018to sing,\u2019 _hayllicuni_, \u2018to celebrate a victory.\u2019 The\nZulu _halala!_ of exultation, which becomes also a verb \u2018to shout for\njoy,\u2019 has its analogues in the Tibetan _alala!_ of joy, and the Greek\n\u1f00\u03bb\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac, which is used as a noun meaning the battle-cry and even the onset\nitself, \u1f00\u03bb\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03b6\u03c9, \u2018to raise the war-cry,\u2019 as well as Hebrew _hillel_, \u2018to\nsing praise,\u2019 whence _hallelujah!_ a word which the believers in the\ntheory that the Red Indians were the Lost Tribes naturally recognized in\nthe native medicine-man\u2019s chant of _hi-le-li-lah!_ The Zulu makes his\npanting _ha!_ do duty as an expression of heat, when he says that the\nhot weather \u2018says _ha ha_\u2019; his way of pitching a song by a _ha! ha!_ is\napparently represented in the verb _haya_, \u2018to lead a song,\u2019 _hayo_ \u2018a\nstarting song, a fee given to the singing-leader for the _haya_\u2019; and\nhis interjectional expression _b\u00e0 b\u00e0!_ \u2018as when one smacks his lips from\na bitter taste,\u2019 becomes a verb-root meaning \u2018to be bitter or sharp to\nthe taste, to prick, to smart.\u2019 The Galla language gives some good\nexamples of interjections passing into words, as where the verbs\n_birr-djeda_ (to say _brr!_) and _bir\u0113fada_ (to make _brr!_) have the\nmeaning \u2018to be afraid.\u2019 Thus _o!_ being the usual answer to a call, and\nalso a cry to drive cattle, there are formed from it by the addition of\nverbal terminations, the verbs _oada_, \u2018to answer,\u2019 and _ofa_, \u2018to\ndrive.\u2019\n\nIf the magnific and honorific _o_ of Japanese grammar can be assigned to\nan interjectional origin, its capabilities in modifying signification\nbecome instructive.[271] It is used before substantives as a prefix of\nhonour; _couni_, \u2018country,\u2019 thus becoming _ocouni_. When a man is\ntalking to his superiors, he puts _o_ before the names of all objects\nbelonging to them, while these superiors drop the _o_ in speaking of\nanything of their own, or an inferior\u2019s; among the higher classes,\npersons of equal rank put _o_ before the names of each other\u2019s things,\nbut not before their own; it is polite to say _o_ before the names of\nall women, and well-bred children are distinguished from little peasants\nby the way in which they are careful to put it even before the nursery\nnames of father and mother, _o toto_, _o caca_, which correspond to the\n_papa_ and _mama_ of Europe. A distinction is made in written language\nbetween _o_, which is put to anything royal, and _oo_ which means great,\nas may be instanced in the use of the word _mets\u2019k\u00e9_ or \u2018spy\u2019 (literally\n\u2018eye-fixer\u2019); _o mets\u2019k\u00e9_ is a princely or imperial spy, while _oo\nmets\u2019k\u00e9_ is the spy in chief. This interjectional adjective _oo_, great,\nis usually prefixed to the name of the capital city, which it is\ncustomary to call _oo Yedo_ in speaking to one of its inhabitants, or\nwhen officials talk of it among themselves. And lastly, the _o_ of\nhonour is prefixed to verbs in all their forms of conjugation, and it is\npolite to say _ominahai matse_, \u2018please to see,\u2019 instead of the mere\nplebeian _minahai matse_. Now an English child of six years old would at\nonce understand these formations if taken as interjectional; and if we\ndo not incorporate in our grammar the _o!_ of admiration and reverential\nembarrassment, it is because we have not chosen to take advantage of\nthis rudimentary means of expression. Another exclamation, the cry of\n_io!_ has taken a place in etymology. When added by the German to his\ncry of \u2018Fire!\u2019 \u2018Murder!\u2019 _Feuerio!_ _Mordio!_ it remains indeed as mere\nan interjection as the _o!_ in our street cries of \u2018Pease-_o!_\u2019\n\u2018Dust-_o!_\u2019 or the _\u00e2!_ in old German _wafen\u00e2!_ \u2018to arms!\u2019 \u2018_hilf\u00e2!_\n\u2018help!\u2019 But the Iroquois of North America makes a fuller use of his\nmaterials, and carries his _io!_ of admiration into the very formation\nof compound words, adding it to a noun to say that it is beautiful or\ngood; thus, in Mohawk, _garonta_ means a tree, _garontio_ a beautiful\ntree; in like manner, _Ohio_ means \u2018river-beautiful;\u2019 and _Ontario_,\n\u2018hill-rock-beautiful,\u2019 is derived in the same way. When, in the old\ntimes of the French occupation of Canada, there was sent over a\nGovernor-General of New France, Monsieur de Montmagny, the Iroquois\nrendered his name from their word _ononte_, \u2018mountain,\u2019 translating him\ninto _Onontio_, or \u2018Great Mountain,\u2019 and thus it came to pass that the\nname of Onontio was handed down long after, like that of C\u00e6sar, as the\ntitle of each succeeding governor, while for the King of France was\nreserved the yet higher style of \u2018the great Onontio.\u2019[272]\n\nThe quest of interjectional derivations for sense-words is apt to lead\nthe etymologist into very rash speculations. One of his best safeguards\nis to test forms supposed to be interjectional, by ascertaining whether\nanything similar has come into use in decidedly distinct languages. For\ninstance, among the familiar sounds which fall on the traveller\u2019s ear in\nSpain is the muleteer\u2019s cry to his beasts, _arre! arre!_ From this\ninterjection, a family of Spanish words are reasonably supposed to be\nderived; the verb _arrear_, \u2018to drive mules,\u2019 _arriero_, the name for\nthe \u2018muleteer\u2019 himself, and so forth.[273] Now is this _arre!_ itself a\ngenuine interjectional sound? It seems likely to be so, for Captain\nWilson found it in use in the Pelew Islands, where the paddlers in the\ncanoes were kept up to their work by crying to them _arree! arree!_\nSimilar interjections are noticed elsewhere with a sense of mere\naffirmation, as in an Australian dialect where _a-ree!_ is set down as\nmeaning \u2018indeed,\u2019 and in the Quichua language where _ari!_ means \u2018yes!\u2019\nwhence the verb _ari\u00f1i_, \u2018to affirm.\u2019 Two other cautions are desirable\nin such enquiries. These are, not to travel too far from the absolute\nmeaning expressed by the interjection, unless there is strong\ncorroborative evidence, and not to override ordinary etymology by\ntreating derivative words as though they were radical. Without these\nchecks, even sound principle breaks down in application, as the\nfollowing two examples may show. It is quite true that _h\u2019m!_ is a\ncommon interjectional call, and that the Dutch have made a verb of it,\n_hemmen_, \u2018to hem after a person.\u2019 We may notice a similar call in West\nAfrica, in the _mma!_ which is translated \u2018hallo! stop!\u2019 in the language\nof Fernando Po. But to apply this as a derivation for German _hemmen_,\n\u2018to stop, check, restrain,\u2019 to _hem_ in, and even to the _hem_ of a\ngarment, as Mr. Wedgwood does without even a perhaps,[274] is travelling\ntoo far beyond the record. Again, it is quite true that sounds of\nclicking and smacking of the lips are common expressions of satisfaction\nall over the world, and words may be derived from these sounds, as where\na vocabulary of the Chinook language of North-West America expresses\n\u2018good\u2019 as _t\u2019k-tok-te_, or _e-tok-te_, sounds which we cannot doubt to\nbe derived from such clicking noises, if the words are not in fact\nattempts to write down the very clicks themselves. But it does not\nfollow that we may take such words as _delici\u00e6_, _delicatus_, out of a\nhighly organized language like Latin, and refer them, as the same\netymologist does, to an interjectional utterance of satisfaction,\n_dlick!_[275] To do this, is to ignore altogether the composition of\nwords; we might as well explain Latin _dilectus_ or English _delight_ as\ndirect formations from expressive sound. In concluding these remarks on\ninterjections, two or three groups of words may be brought forward as\nexamples of the application of collected evidence from a number of\nlanguages, mostly of the lower races.\n\nThe affirmative and negative particles, which bear in language such\nmeanings as \u2018yes!\u2019 \u2018indeed!\u2019 and \u2018no!\u2019 \u2018not,\u2019 may have their derivations\nfrom many different sources. It is thought that the Australian dialects\nall belong to a single stock, but so unlike are the sounds they use for\n\u2018no!\u2019 and \u2018yes!\u2019 that tribes are actually named from these words as a\nconvenient means of distinction. Thus the tribes known as _Gureang_,\n_Kamilaroi_, _Kogai_, _Wolaroi_, _Wailwun_, _Wiratheroi_, have their\nnames from the words they use for \u2018no,\u2019 these being _gure_, _kamil_,\n_ko_, _wol_, _wail_, _wira_, respectively; and on the other hand the\n_Pikambul_ are said to be so called from their word _pika_, \u2018yes.\u2019 The\ndevice of naming tribes, thus invented by the savages of Australia, and\nwhich perhaps recurs in Brazil in the name of the _Cocatapuya_ tribe\n(_coca_ \u2018no,\u2019 _tapuya_ \u2018man\u2019) is very curious in its similarity to the\nmedi\u00e6val division of _Langue d\u2019oc_ and _Langue d\u2019o\u00efl_, according to the\nwords for \u2018yes!\u2019 which prevailed in Southern and Northern France: _oc!_\nis Latin _hoc_, as we might say \u2018that\u2019s it!\u2019 while the longer form _hoc\nillud_ was reduced to _o\u00efl!_ and thence to _oui!_ Many other of the\nwords for \u2018yes!\u2019 and \u2018no!\u2019 may be sense-words, as, again, the French and\nItalian _si!_ is Latin _sic_. But on the other hand there is reason to\nthink that many of these particles in use in various languages are not\nsense-words, but sound-words of a purely interjectional kind; or, what\ncomes nearly to the same thing, a feeling of fitness of the sound to the\nmeaning may have affected the choice and shaping of sense-words\u2014a remark\nof large application in such enquiries as the present. It is an old\nsuggestion that the primitive sound of such words as _non_ is a nasal\ninterjection of doubt or dissent.[276] It corresponds in sound with the\nvisible gesture of closing the lips, while a vowel-interjection, with or\nwithout aspiration, belongs rather to open-mouthed utterance. Whether\nfrom this or some other cause, there is a remarkable tendency among most\ndistant and various languages of the world, on the one hand to use\nvowel-sounds, with soft or hard breathing, to express \u2018yes!\u2019 and on the\nother hand to use nasal consonants to express \u2018no!\u2019 The affirmative form\nis much the commoner. The guttural _i-i!_ of the West Australian, the\n_\u0113\u0113!_ of the Darien, the _a-ah!_ of the Clallam, the _\u00e9!_ of the Yakama\nIndians, the _e!_ of the Basuto, and the _ai!_ of the Kanuri, are some\nexamples of a wide group of forms, of which the following are only part\nof those noted down in Polynesian and South American districts\u2014_ii!_\n_\u00e9!_ _ia!_ _aio!_ _io!_ _ya!_ _ey!_ &c., _h\u2019!_ _heh!_ _he-e!_ _h\u00fc!_\n_hoehah!_ _ah-ha!_ &c. The idea has most weight where pairs of words for\n\u2018yes!\u2019 and \u2018no!\u2019 are found both conforming. Thus in the very suggestive\ndescription by Dobrizhoffer among the Abipones of South America, for\n\u2018yes!\u2019 the men and youths say _h\u00e9\u00e9!_ the women say _h\u00e1\u00e1!_ and the old\nmen give a grunt; while for \u2018no\u2019 they all say _yna!_ and make the\nloudness of the sound indicate the strength of the negation. Dr.\nMartius\u2019s collection of vocabularies of Brazilian tribes, philologically\nvery distinct, contains several such pairs of affirmatives and\nnegatives, the equivalents of \u2018yes!\u2019\u2014\u2018no!\u2019 being in Tupi _ay\u00e9_\u2014_aan!\naani!_; in Guato _ii!_\u2014_mau!_; in Jumana, _aeae!_\u2014_m\u00e4iu!_; in Miranha\n_ha \u00fa!_\u2014_nani!_ The Quichua of Peru affirms by _y!_ _hu!_ and expresses\n\u2018no,\u2019 \u2018not,\u2019 \u2018not at all,\u2019 by _ama!_ _manan!_ &c., making from the\nlatter the verb _manam\u00f1i_, \u2018to deny.\u2019 The Quich\u00e9 of Guatemala has _e_ or\n_ve_ for the affirmative, _ma_, _man_, _mana_, for the negative. In\nAfrica, again, the Galla language has _ee!_ for \u2018yes!\u2019 and _hn_, _hin_,\n_hm_, for \u2018not!\u2019; the Fernandian _ee!_ for \u2018yes!\u2019 and _\u2018nt_ for \u2018not;\u2019\nwhile the Coptic dictionary gives the affirmative (Latin \u2018sane\u2019) as\n_eie_, _ie_, and the negative by a long list of nasal sounds such as\n_an_, _emmen_, _en_, _mmn_, &c. The Sanskrit particles _hi!_ \u2018indeed,\ncertainly,\u2019 _na_, \u2018not,\u2019 exemplify similar forms in Indo-European\nlanguages, down to our own _aye!_ and _no!_[277] There must be some\nmeaning in all this, for otherwise I could hardly have noted down\nincidentally, without making any attempt at a general search, so many\ncases from such different languages, only finding a comparatively small\nnumber of contradictory cases.[278]\n\nDe Brosses maintained that the Latin _stare_, to _stand_, might be\ntraced to an origin in expressive sound. He fancied he could hear in it\nan organic radical sign designating fixity, and could thus explain why\n_st!_ should be used as a call to make a man _stand still_. Its\nconnexion with these sounds is often spoken of in more modern books, and\none imaginative German philologer describes their origin among prim\u00e6val\nmen as vividly as though he had been there to see. A man stands\nbeckoning in vain to a companion who does not see him, till at last his\neffort relieves itself by the help of the vocal nerves, and\ninvoluntarily there breaks from him the sound _st!_ Now the other hears\nthe sound, turns toward it, sees the beckoning gesture, knows that he is\ncalled to stop; and when this has happened again and again, the action\ncomes to be described in common talk by uttering the now familiar _st!_\nand thus _sta_ becomes a root, the symbol of the abstract idea to\nstand![279] This is a most ingenious conjecture, but unfortunately\nnothing more. It would be at any rate strengthened, though not\nestablished, if its supporters could prove that the _st!_ used to call\npeople in Germany, _pst!_ in Spain, is itself a pure interjectional\nsound. Even this, however, has never been made out. The call has not yet\nbeen shown to be in use outside our own Indo-European family of\nlanguages; and so long as it is only found in use within these limits,\nan opponent might even plausibly claim it as an abbreviation of the very\n_sta!_ (\u2018stay! stop!\u2019) for which the theory proposes it as an\norigin.[280]\n\nThat it is not unfair to ask for fuller evidence of a sound being purely\ninterjectional than its appearance in a single family of languages, may\nbe shown by examining another group of interjections, which are found\namong the remotest tribes, and thus have really considerable claims to\nrank among the primary sounds of language. These are the simple\nsibilants, _s!_ _sh!_ _h\u2019sh!_ used especially to scare birds, and among\nmen to express aversion or call for silence. Catlin describes a party of\nSioux Indians, when they came to the portrait of a dead chief, each\nputting his hand over his mouth with a _hush-sh_; and when he himself\nwished to approach the sacred \u2018medicine\u2019 in a Mandan lodge, he was\ncalled to refrain by the same _hush-sh!_ Among ourselves the sibilant\ninterjection passes into two exactly opposite senses, according as it is\nmeant to put the speaker himself to silence, or to command silence for\nhim to be heard; and thus we find the sibilant used elsewhere, sometimes\nin the one way and sometimes in the other. Among the wild Veddas of\nCeylon, _iss!_ is an exclamation of disapproval, as in ancient or modern\nEurope; and the verb _sh\u00e2rak_, to hiss, is used in Hebrew with a like\nsense, \u2018they shall hiss him out of his place.\u2019 But in Japan reverence is\nexpressed by a hiss, commanding silence. Captain Cook remarked that the\nnatives of the New Hebrides expressed their admiration by hissing like\ngeese. Casalis says of the Basutos, \u2018Hisses are the most unequivocal\nmarks of applause, and are as much courted in the African parliaments as\nthey are dreaded by our candidates for popular favour.\u2019[281] Among other\nsibilant interjections, are Turkish _s\u00fbs\u00e2!_ Ossetic _ss!_ _sos!_\n\u2018silence!\u2019 Fernandian _sia!_ \u2018listen!\u2019 \u2018tush!\u2019 Yoruba _si\u00f3!_ \u2018pshaw!\u2019\nThus it appears that these sounds, far from being special to one\nlinguistic family, are very widespread elements of human speech. Nor is\nthere any question as to their passage into fully-formed words, as in\nour verb to _hush_, which has passed into the sense of \u2018to quiet, put to\nsleep\u2019 (adjectively, \u2018as _hush_ as death\u2019), metaphorically to _hush_ up\na matter, or Greek \u03c3\u03af\u03b6\u03c9 \u2018to hush, say hush! command silence.\u2019 Even Latin\n_silere_ and Gothic _silan_, \u2018to be silent,\u2019 may with some plausibility\nbe explained as derived from the interjectional _s!_ of silence.\n\nSanskrit dictionaries recognize several words which explicitly state\ntheir own interjectional derivation; such are _h\u00fb\u00f1k\u00e2ra_ (_h\u00fbm_-making),\n\u2018the utterance of the mystic religious exclamation _h\u00fbm!_\u2019 and\n_\u00e7i\u00e7\u00e7abda_ (_\u00e7i\u00e7_-sound), \u2018a hiss.\u2019 Besides these obvious formations,\nthe interjectional element is present to some greater or less degree in\nthe list of Sanskrit radicals, which represent probably better than\nthose of any other language the verb-roots of the ancient Aryan stock.\nIn _ru_, \u2018to roar, cry, wail\u2019 and in _kakh_, \u2018to laugh,\u2019 we have the\nsimpler kind of interjectional derivation, that which merely describes a\nsound. As to the more difficult kind, which carry the sense into a new\nstage, Mr. Wedgwood makes out a strong case for the connexion of\ninterjections of loathing and aversion, such as _pooh!_ _fie!_ &c., with\nthat large group of words which are represented in English by _foul_ and\n_fiend_, in Sanskrit by the verbs _p\u00fby_, \u2018to become foul, to stink\u2019 and\n_piy_, _p\u00eey_, \u2018to revile, to hate.\u2019[282] Further evidence may be here\nadduced in support of this theory. The languages of the lower races use\nthe sound _pu_ to express an evil smell; the Zulu remarks that \u2018the meat\nsays _pu_\u2019 (inyama iti _pu_), meaning that it stinks; the Timorese has\n_po\u00f6p_ \u2018putrid;\u2019 the Quich\u00e9 language has _puh_, _poh_ \u2018corruption, pus,\u2019\n_pohir_ \u2018to turn bad, rot,\u2019 _puz_ \u2018rottenness, what stinks;\u2019 the Tupi\nword for nasty, _puxi_, may be compared with the Latin _putidus_, and\nthe Columbia River name for the \u2018skunk,\u2019 _o-pun-pun_, with similar names\nof stinking animals, Sanskrit _p\u00fbtik\u00e2_ \u2018civet-cat,\u2019 and French _putois_\n\u2018pole-cat.\u2019 From the French interjection _fi!_ words have long been\nformed belonging to the language, if not authenticated by the Academy;\nin medi\u00e6val French \u2018maistre _fi-fi_\u2019 was a recognized term for a\nscavenger, and _fi-fi_ books are not yet extinct.\n\nThere has been as yet, unfortunately, too much separation between what\nmay be called generative philology, which examines into the ultimate\norigins of words, and historical philology, which traces their\ntransmission and change. It will be a great gain to the science of\nlanguage to bring these two branches of enquiry into closer union, even\nas the processes they relate to have been going on together since the\nearliest days of speech. At present the historical philologists of the\nschool of Grimm and Bopp, whose great work has been the tracing of our\nIndo-European dialects to an early Aryan form of language, have had much\nthe advantage in fulness of evidence and strictness of treatment. At the\nsame time it is evident that the views of the generative philologists,\nfrom De Brosses onward, embody a sound principle, and that much of the\nevidence collected as to emotional and other directly expressive words,\nis of the highest value in the argument. But in working out the details\nof such word-formation, it must be remembered that no department of\nphilology lies more open to Augustine\u2019s caustic remark on the\netymologists of his time, that like the interpretation of dreams, the\nderivation of words is set down by each man according to his own fancy.\n(Ut somniorum interpretatio ita verborum origo pro cujusque ingenio\npr\u00e6dicatur.)\n\nFootnote 247:\n\n  C. de Brosses, \u2018Trait\u00e9 de la Formation M\u00e9canique des Langues,\u2019 &c.\n  (1st ed. 1765); Wedgwood, \u2018Origin of Language\u2019 (1866); \u2018Dic. of\n  English Etymology\u2019 (1859, 2nd ed. 1872); Farrar, \u2018Chapters on\n  Language\u2019 (1865).\n\nFootnote 248:\n\n  Among the principal savage and barbaric languages here used for\n  evidence, are as follows:\u2014Africa: Galla (Tutschek, Gr. and Dic.),\n  Yoruba (Bowen, Gr. and Dic.), Zulu (D\u00f6hne, Dic.). Polynesia, &c.:\n  Maori (Kendall, Vocab., Williams, Dic.), Tonga (Mariner, Vocab.), Fiji\n  (Hazlewood, Dic.), Melanesia (Gabelentz, Melan. Spr.). Australia\n  (Grey, Moore, Sch\u00fcrmann, Oldfield, Vocabs.). N. America: Pima, Yakama,\n  Clallam, Lummi, Chinuk, Mohawk, Micmac (Smithson. Contr. vol. iii.),\n  Chinook Jargon (Gibbs, Dic.), Quich\u00e9 (Brasseur, Gr. and Dic.). S.\n  America: Tupi (Diaz, Dic.), Carib (Rochefort, Vocab.), Quichua\n  (Markham, Gr. and Dic.), Chilian (Febres, Dic.), Brazilian tribes\n  (Martius, \u2018Glossaria linguarum Brasiliensium\u2019). Many details in Pott,\n  \u2018Doppelung,\u2019 &c.\n\nFootnote 249:\n\n  Bonwick, \u2018Daily Life of Tasmanians,\u2019 p. 140; Capt. Wilson, in \u2018Tr.\n  Eth. Soc.,\u2019 vol. iv. p. 322, &c.; J. L. Wilson, in \u2018Journ. Amer.\n  Oriental Soc.,\u2019 vol. i. 1849, No. 4; also Cranz., \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 279\n  (cited below, p. 186). For other accounts, see \u2018Early Hist. of\n  Mankind,\u2019 p. 77.\n\nFootnote 250:\n\n  Forbes, \u2018Aymara Indians,\u2019 in Journ. Eth. Soc. 1870, vol. ii. p. 208.\n\nFootnote 251:\n\n  See Helmholtz, \u2018Tonempfindungen,\u2019 2nd ed. p. 163; McKendrick, Text\n  Book of Physiology, p. 681, &c., 720, &c.; Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Lectures,\u2019 2nd\n  series, p. 95, &c.\n\nFootnote 252:\n\n  See Pallegoix, \u2018Gramm. Ling. Thai.\u2019; Bastian, in \u2018Monatsb. Berlin.\n  Akad.\u2019 June 6, 1867, and \u2018Roy. Asiatic Soc.,\u2019 June, 1867.\n\nFootnote 253:\n\n  Burton, in \u2018Mem. Anthrop. Soc.,\u2019 vol. i. p. 313; Bowen, \u2018Yoruba Gr.\n  and Dic.\u2019 p. 5; see J. L. Wilson, \u2018W. Afr.,\u2019 p. 461.\n\nFootnote 254:\n\n  C. W., in \u2018London and Westminster Review,\u2019 Oct. 1837.\n\nFootnote 255:\n\n  \u2018Accentus est etiam in dicendo cantus obscurior.\u2019\u2014Cic. de Orat.\n\nFootnote 256:\n\n  Helmholtz, p. 364.\n\nFootnote 257:\n\n  Caswell, in Bastian, \u2018Berlin. Akad.\u2019 l.c.\n\nFootnote 258:\n\n  Horne Tooke, \u2018Diversions of Purley,\u2019 2nd ed. London, 1798, pt. i. pp.\n  60-3.\n\nFootnote 259:\n\n  R. F. Burton, \u2018Lake Regions of Central Africa,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 333;\n  Livingstone, \u2018Missionary Tr. in S. Africa,\u2019 p. 298; \u2018Gr. of Mpongwe\n  lang,\u2019 A. B. C. F. Missions, Rev. J. L. Wilson, p. 27. See Callaway,\n  \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. p. 59.\n\nFootnote 260:\n\n  Arroyo de la Cuesta, \u2018Gr. of Mutsun Lang.\u2019 p. 39, in Smithsonian\n  Contr., vol. iii.; Neapolitan _mamma mia!_ exclamation of wonder, &c.,\n  Liebrecht in G\u00f6tting. Gel. Anz. 1872, p. 1287.\n\nFootnote 261:\n\n  Shaw, \u2018Travels in Barbary,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. xv. p. 669.\n\nFootnote 262:\n\n  Some of the examples here cited, will be found in Grimm, \u2018Deutsche\n  Gr.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 308; Pott, \u2018Doppelung.\u2019 p. 27; Wedgwood, \u2018Origin of\n  Language.\u2019\n\nFootnote 263:\n\n  See Pictet, \u2018Origines Indo-Europ.\u2019 part i. p. 382; Caldwell, \u2018Gr. of\n  Dravidian Langs.\u2019 p. 465; Wedgwood, Dic. s.v. \u2018puss,\u2019 &c.; Mariner,\n  \u2018Tonga Is. (Vocab.)\u2019; Gibbs, \u2018Dic. of Chinook Jargon,\u2019 Smithsonian\n  Coll. No. 161; Pandosy, \u2018Gr. and Dic. of Yakama,\u2019 Smithson. Contr.\n  vol. iii.; compare J. L. Wilson, \u2018Mpongwe Gr.\u2019 p. 57. The Hindu\n  child\u2019s call to the cat _mun mun!_ may be from Hindust. _m\u00e2no_ = cat.\n  It. _micio_, Fr. _mite_, _minon_, Ger. _mieze_, &c. = \u2018cat,\u2019 and Sp.\n  _miz!_ Ger. _minz!_ &c. = \u2018puss!\u2019 are from imitations of a _mew_.\n\nFootnote 264:\n\n  For lists of drivers\u2019 words, see Grimm, l.c.; Pott, \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 p.\n  261; Halliwell, \u2018Dic. of Archaic and Provincial English,\u2019 s.v. \u2018ree;\u2019\n  Brand, vol. ii. p. 15; Pictet, part ii. p. 489.\n\nFootnote 265:\n\n  \u2018Encyclop\u00e9die, ou Dictionnaire Raisonn\u00e9 des Sciences, &c.\u2019 Recueil de\n  Planches, Paris, 1763, art. \u2018Chasses.\u2019 The traditional cries are still\n  more or less in use. See \u2018A Week in a French Country-house.\u2019\n\nFootnote 266:\n\n  Aldrete, \u2018Lengua Castellana,\u2019 Madrid, 1673, s.vv. _harre_, _exe_.\n\nFootnote 267:\n\n  \u2018There prevailed in those days an indecent custom; when the preacher\n  touched any favourite topick in a manner that delighted his audience,\n  their approbation was expressed by a loud hum, continued in proportion\n  to their zeal or pleasure. When Burnet preached, part of his\n  congregation hummed so loudly and so long, that he sat down to enjoy\n  it, and rubbed his face with his handkerchief. When Sprat preached, he\n  likewise was honoured with the like animating hum, but he stretched\n  out his hand to the congregation, and cried, \u201cPeace, peace; I pray\n  you, peace.\u201d\u2019 Johnson, \u2018Life of Sprat.\u2019\n\nFootnote 268:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 279.\n\nFootnote 269:\n\n  D. Wilson, \u2018Prehistoric Man,\u2019 p. 65.\n\nFootnote 270:\n\n  Compare, in the same district, Cam\u00e9 _ii_, Cotox\u00f3 _biebie_, _eubi\u00e4hi\u00e4_,\n  multus, -a, -um.\n\nFootnote 271:\n\n  J. H. Donker Curtius, \u2018Essai de Grammaire Japonaise,\u2019 p. 34, &c. 199.\n  In former editions of the present work, the directly interjectional\n  character of the _o_ is held in an unqualified manner. Reference to\n  the grammars of Prof. B. H. Chamberlain and others, where this\n  particle (_on_, _o_) is connected with other forms implying a common\n  root, leaves the argument to depend wholly or partly on the\n  supposition of an interjectional source for this root. [Note to 3rd\n  ed.]\n\nFootnote 272:\n\n  Bruyas, \u2018Mohawk Lang.,\u2019 p. 16, in Smithson. Contr. vol. iii.\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 Part iii. p. 328, 502, 507. Charlevoix,\n  \u2018Nouv. France,\u2019 vol. i. p. 350.\n\nFootnote 273:\n\n  The _arre!_ may have been introduced into Europe by the Moors, as it\n  is used in Arabic, and its use in Europe corresponds nearly with the\n  limits of the Moorish conquest, in Spain _arre!_ in Provence _arri!_\n\nFootnote 274:\n\n  Wedgwood, \u2018Origin of Language,\u2019 p. 92.\n\nFootnote 275:\n\n  Ibid., p. 72.\n\nFootnote 276:\n\n  De Brosses, vol. i. p. 203. See Wedgwood.\n\nFootnote 277:\n\n  Also Oraon _hae_\u2014_ambo_; Micmac _\u00e9_\u2014_mw_.\n\nFootnote 278:\n\n  A double contradiction in Carib _anhan!_ = \u2018yes!\u2019 _oua!_ = \u2018no!\u2019\n  Single contradictions in Catoquina _hang!_ Tupi _e\u00e9m!_ Botocudo\n  _hemhem!_ Yoruba _e\u00f1!_ for \u2018yes!\u2019 Culino _aiy!_ Australian _yo!_ for\n  \u2018no!\u2019 &c. How much these sounds depend on peculiar intonation, we, who\n  habitually use _h\u2019m!_ either for \u2018yes!\u2019 or \u2018no!\u2019 can well understand.\n\nFootnote 279:\n\n  (Charles de Brosses) \u2018Trait\u00e9 de la Formation M\u00e9canique des Langues,\n  &c.\u2019 Paris, An. ix., vol. i. p. 238; vol. ii. p. 313. Lazarus and\n  Steinthal, \u2018Zeitschrift f\u00fcr V\u00f6lkerpsychologie,\u2019 &c., vol. i. p. 421.\n  Heyse, \u2018System der Sprachwissenschaft,\u2019 p. 73. Farrar, \u2018Chapters on\n  Language,\u2019 p. 202.\n\nFootnote 280:\n\n  Similar sounds are used to command silence, to stop speaking as well\n  as to stop going. English _husht!_ _whist!_ _hist!_ Welsh _ust!_\n  French _chut!_ Italian _zitto!_ Swedish _tyst!_ Russian _st\u2019!_ and the\n  Latin _st!_ so well described in the curious old line quoted by Mr.\n  Farrar, which compares it with the gesture of the finger on the lips:\u2014\n\n              \u2018Isis, et Harpocrates digito qui significat _st!_\u2019\n\n  This group of interjections, again, has not been proved to be in use\n  outside Aryan limits.\n\nFootnote 281:\n\n  Catlin, \u2018North American Indians,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 221, 39, 151, 162.\n  Bailey in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 318. Job xxvii. 23. (The verb\n  _sh\u00e2rak_ also signifies to call by a hiss, \u2018and he will hiss unto them\n  from the end of the earth, and behold, they shall come with speed,\u2019\n  Is. v. 26; Jer. xix. 8.) Alcock, \u2018The Capital of the Tycoon,\u2019 vol. i.\n  p. 394. Cook, \u20182nd Voy.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 36. Casalis, \u2018Basutos,\u2019 p. 234.\n\nFootnote 282:\n\n  Wedgwood, \u2018Origin of Language,\u2019 p. 83, \u2018Dictionary,\u2019 Introd. p. xlix.\n  and s.v. \u2018foul.\u2019 Prof. Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Lectures,\u2019 2nd series, p. 92,\n  protests against the indiscriminate derivation of words directly from\n  such cries and interjections, without the intervention of determinate\n  roots. As to the present topic, he points out that Latin _pus_,\n  _putridus_, Gothic _fuls_, English _foul_, follow Grimm\u2019s law as if\n  words derived from a single root. Admitting this, however, the\n  question has to be raised, how far pure interjections and their direct\n  derivatives, being self-expressive and so to speak living sounds, are\n  affected by phonetic changes such as that of Grimm\u2019s law, which act on\n  articulate sounds no longer fully expressive in themselves, but handed\n  down by mere tradition. Thus _p_ and _f_ occur in one and the same\n  dialect in interjections of disgust and aversion, _puh!_ _fi!_ being\n  used in Venice or Paris, just as similar sounds would be in London. In\n  tracing this group of words from early Aryan forms, it must also be\n  noticed that Sanskrit is a very imperfect guide, for its alphabet has\n  no _f_, and it can hardly give the rule in this matter to languages\n  possessing both _p_ and _f_, and thus capable of nicer appreciation of\n  this class of interjections.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI.\n            EMOTIONAL AND IMITATIVE LANGUAGE (_continued_).\n\n    Imitative Words\u2014Human actions named from sound\u2014Animals\u2019 names from\n    cries, &c.\u2014Musical Instruments\u2014Sounds reproduced\u2014Words modified to\n    adapt sound to sense\u2014Reduplication\u2014Graduation of vowels to express\n    distance and difference\u2014Children\u2019s Language\u2014Sound-words as related\n    to Sense-words\u2014Language an original product of the lower Culture.\n\n\nFrom the earliest times of language to our own day, it is unlikely that\nmen ever quite ceased to be conscious that some of their words were\nderived from imitation of the common sounds heard about them. In our own\nmodern English, for instance, results of such imitation are evident;\nflies _buzz_, bees _hum_, snakes _hiss_, a cracker or a bottle of\nginger-beer _pops_, a cannon or a bittern _booms_. In the words for\nanimals and for musical instruments in the various languages of the\nworld, the imitation of their cries and tones is often to be plainly\nheard, as in the names of the _hoopoe_, the _ai-ai_ sloth, the _kaka_\nparrot, the Eastern _tomtom_, which is a drum, the African _ulule_,\nwhich is a flute, the Siamese _khong-bong_, which is a wooden\nharmonicon, and in like manner through a host of other words. But these\nevident cases are far from representing the whole effects of imitation\non the growth of language. They form, indeed, the easy entrance to a\nphilological region, which becomes less penetrable the farther it is\nexplored.\n\nThe operations of which we see the results before us in the actual\nlanguages of the world seem to have been somewhat as follows. Men have\nimitated their own emotional utterances or interjections, the cries of\nanimals, the tones of musical instruments, the sounds of shouting,\nhowling, stamping, breaking, tearing, scraping, with others which are\nall day coming to their ears, and out of these imitations many current\nwords indisputably have their source. But these words, as we find them\nin use, differ often widely, often beyond all recognition, from the\noriginal sounds they sprang from. In the first place, man\u2019s voice can\nonly make a very rude copy of most sounds his ear receives; his possible\nvowels are very limited in their range compared with natural tones, and\nhis possible consonants still more helpless as a means of imitating\nnatural noises. Moreover, his voice is only allowed to use a part even\nof this imperfect imitative power, seeing that each language for its own\nconvenience restricts it to a small number of set vowels and consonants,\nto which the imitative sounds have to conform, thus becoming\nconventionalized into articulate words with further loss of imitative\naccuracy. No class of words have a more perfect imitative origin than\nthose which simply profess to be vocal imitations of sound. How ordinary\nalphabets to some extent succeed and to some extent fail in writing down\nthese sounds may be judged from a few examples. Thus, the Australian\nimitation of a spear or bullet striking is given as _toop_; to the Zulu,\nwhen a calabash is beaten, it says _boo_; the Karens hear the flitting\nghosts of the dead call in the wailing voice of the wind, _re, re, ro,\nro_; the old traveller, Pietro della Valle, tells how the Shah of Persia\nsneered at Timur and his Tartars, with their arrows that went _ter ter_;\ncertain Buddhist heretics maintained that water is alive, because when\nit boils it says _chichit\u00e1, chitichita_, a symptom of vitality which\noccasioned much theological controversy as to drinking cold and warm\nwater. Lastly, sound-words taken up into the general inventory of a\nlanguage have to follow its organic changes, and in the course of\nphonetic transition, combination, decay, and mutilation, to lose ever\nmore and more their original shape. To take a single example, the French\n_huer_ \u2018to shout\u2019 (Welsh _hwa_) may be a perfect imitative verb; yet\nwhen it passes into modern English _hue_ and cry, our changed\npronunciation of the vowel destroys all imitation of the call. Now to\nthe language-makers all this was of little account. They merely wanted\nrecognized words to express recognized thought, and no doubt arrived by\nrepeated trials at systems which were found practically to answer this\npurpose. But to the modern philologist, who is attempting to work out\nthe converse of the problem, and to follow backward the course of words\nto original imitative sound, the difficulty is most embarrassing. It is\nnot only that thousands of words really derived from such imitation may\nnow by successive change have lost all safe traces of their history;\nsuch mere deficiency of knowledge is only a minor evil. What is far\nworse is that the way is thrown open to an unlimited number of false\nsolutions, which yet look on the face of them fully as like truth as\nothers which we know historically to be true. One thing is clear, that\nit is of no use to resort to violent means, to rush in among the words\nof language, explaining them away right and left as derived each from\nsome remote application of an imitative noise. The advocate of the\nImitative Theory who attempts this, trusting in his own powers of\ndiscernment, has indeed taken in hand a perilous task, for, in fact, of\nall judges of the question at issue, he has nourished and trained\nhimself up to become the very worst. His imagination is ever suggesting\nto him what his judgment would like to find true; like a witness\nanswering the questions of the counsel on his own side, he answers in\ngood faith, but with what bias we all know. It was thus with De Brosses,\nto whom this department of philology owes so much. It is nothing to say\nthat he had a keen ear for the voice of Nature; she must have positively\ntalked to him in alphabetic language, for he could hear the sound of\nhollowness in the _sk_ of \u03c3\u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03c4\u03c9 \u2018to dig,\u2019 of hardness in the _cal_ of\n_callosity_, the noise of insertion of a body between two others in the\n_tr_ of _trans_, _intra_. In enquiries so liable to misleading fancy, no\npains should be spared in securing impartial testimony, and it\nfortunately happens that there are available sources of such evidence,\nwhich, when thoroughly worked, will give to the theory of imitative\nwords as near an approach to accuracy as has been attained to in any\nother wide philological problem. By comparing a number of languages,\nwidely apart in their general system and materials, and whose agreement\nas to the words in question can only be accounted for by similar\nformation of words from similar suggestion of sound, we obtain groups of\nwords whose imitative character is indisputable. The groups here\nconsidered consist in general of imitative words of the simpler kind,\nthose directly connected with the special sound they are taken from, but\ntheir examination to some extent admits of words being brought in, where\nthe connexion of the idea expressed with the sound imitated is more\nremote. This, lastly, opens the far wider and more difficult problem,\nhow far imitation of sounds is the primary cause of the great mass of\nwords in the vocabularies of the world, between whose sound and sense no\ndirect connexion appears.\n\nWords which express human actions accompanied with sound form a very\nlarge and intelligible class. In remote and most different languages, we\nfind such forms as _pu_, _puf_, _bu_, _buf_, _fu_, _fuf_, in use with\nthe meaning of _puffing_, _fuffing_; or blowing; Malay _puput_; Tongan\n_buhi_; Maori _pupui_; Australian _bobun_, _bwa-bun_; Galla _bufa_,\n_afufa_; Zulu _futa_, _punga_, _pupuza_ (_fu_, _pu_, used as expressive\nparticles); Quich\u00e9 _puba_; Quichua _puhuni_; Tupi _ype\u00fb_; Finnish\n_puhkia_; Hebrew _puach_; Danish _puste_; Lithuanian _p\u00faciu_; and in\nnumbers of other languages;[283] here, grammatical adjuncts apart, the\nsignificant force lies in the imitative syllable. Savages have named the\nEuropean musket when they saw it, by the sound _pu_, describing not the\nreport, but the puff of smoke issuing from the muzzle. The Society\nIslanders supposed at first that the white men blew through the barrel\nof the gun, and they called it accordingly _pupuhi_, from the verb\n_puhi_ to blow, while the New Zealanders more simply called it a _pu_.\nSo the Amaxosa of South Africa call it _umpu_, from the imitative sound\n_pu!_ The Chinook Jargon of North-West America uses the phrase _mamook\npoo_ (make _poo_) for a verb \u2018to shoot,\u2019 and a six-chambered revolver is\ncalled _tohum poo_, _i.e._, a \u2018six-_poo_.\u2019 When a European uses the word\n_puff_ to denote the discharge of a gun, he is merely referring to the\nsmoke blown out, as he would speak of a _puff_ of wind, or even a\npowder-_puff_ or a _puff_-ball; and when a pistol is called in\ncolloquial German a _puffer_, the meaning of the word matches that used\nfor it in French Argot, a \u2018soufflant.\u2019 It has often been supposed that\nthe _puff_ imitates the actual sound, the _bang_ of the gun, and this\nhas been brought forward to show by what extremely different words one\nand the same sound may be imitated, but this is a mistake.[284] These\nderivations of the name of the gun from the notion of blowing correspond\nwith those which give names to the comparatively noiseless blow-tube of\nthe bird-hunter, called by the Indians of Yucatan a _pub_, in South\nAmerica by the Chiquitos a _pucuna_, by the Cocamas a _puna_. Looking\ninto vocabularies of languages which have such verbs \u2018to blow,\u2019 it is\nusual to find with them other words apparently related to them, and\nexpressing more or less distant ideas. Thus Australian _poo-yu_, _puyu_\n\u2018smoke;\u2019 Quichua _puhucuni_ \u2018to light a fire,\u2019 _punquini_ \u2018to swell,\u2019\n_puyu_, _puhuyu_ \u2018a cloud;\u2019 Maori _puku_ \u2018to pant,\u2019 _puka_ \u2018to swell;\u2019\nTupi _p\u00fap\u00fa_, _pup\u00fare_ \u2018to boil;\u2019 Galla _bube_ \u2018wind,\u2019 _bubiza_ \u2018to cool\nby blowing;\u2019 Kanuri (root _fu_) _fungin_ \u2018to blow, swell,\u2019 _fur\u00fadu_ \u2018a\nstuffed pad or bolster,\u2019 &c., _bubute_ \u2018bellows\u2019 (_bubute fungin_ \u2018I\nblow the bellows\u2019); Zulu (dropping the prefixes) _puku_, _pukupu_\n\u2018frothing, foam,\u2019 whence _pukupuku_ \u2018an empty frothy fellow,\u2019 _pupuma_\n\u2018to bubble, boil,\u2019 _fu_ \u2018a cloud,\u2019 _fumfu_ \u2018blown about like high grass\nin the wind,\u2019 whence _fumfuta_ \u2018to be confused, thrown into disorder,\u2019\n_futo_ \u2018bellows,\u2019 _fuba_ \u2018the breast, chest,\u2019 then figuratively \u2018bosom,\nconscience.\u2019\n\nThe group of words belonging to the closed lips, of which _mum_,\n_mumming_, _mumble_ are among the many forms belonging to European\nlanguages,[285] are worked out in like manner among the lower races\u2014Vei\n_mu mu_ \u2018dumb\u2019; Mpongwe _imamu_ \u2018dumb\u2019; Zulu _momata_ (from _moma_, \u2018a\nmotion with the mouth as in mumbling\u2019) \u2018to move the mouth or lips,\u2019\n_mumata_ \u2018to close the lips as with a mouthful of water,\u2019 _mumuta_,\n_mumuza_ \u2018to eat mouthfuls of corn, &c., with the lips shut;\u2019 Tahitian\n_mamu_ \u2018to be silent,\u2019 _omumu_ \u2018to murmur;\u2019 Fijian, _nomo_, _nomo-nomo_\n\u2018to be silent;\u2019 Chilian, _\u00f1omn_ \u2018to be silent;\u2019 Quich\u00e9, _mem_ \u2018mute,\u2019\nwhence _memer_ \u2018to become mute;\u2019 Quichua, _amu_ \u2018dumb, silent,\u2019\n_amullini_ \u2018to have something in the mouth,\u2019 _amul-layacuni simicta_ \u2018to\nmutter, to grumble.\u2019 The group represented by Sanskrit _t\u2019h\u00fbt\u2019h\u00fb_ \u2018the\nsound of spitting,\u2019 Persian _thu kerdan_ (make _thu_) \u2018to spit,\u2019 Greek\n\u03c0\u03c4\u03cd\u03c9, may be compared with Chinook _mamook toh_, _tooh_, (make _toh_,\n_tooh_); Chilian _tuvc\u00f9tun_ (make _tuv_); Tahitian _tutua_; Galla _twu_;\nYoruba _tu_. Among the Sanskrit verb-roots, none carries its imitative\nnature more plainly than _kshu_ \u2018to sneeze;\u2019 the following analogous\nforms are from South America:\u2014Chilian, _echiun_; Quichua, _achhini_; and\nfrom various languages of Brazilian tribes, _techa-ai_, _haitschu_,\n_atchian_, _natschun_, _aritischune_, &c. Another imitative verb is well\nshown in the Negro-English dialect of Surinam, _njam_ \u2018to eat\u2019 (pron.\n_nyam_), _njam-njam_ \u2018food\u2019 (\u2018en hem _njanjam_ ben de sprinkhan nanga\nboesi-honi\u2019\u2014\u2018and his meat was locusts and wild honey\u2019). In Australia the\nimitative verb \u2018to eat\u2019 reappears as _g\u2019nam-ang_. In Africa the Susu\nlanguage has _nimnim_, \u2018to taste,\u2019 and a similar formation is observed\nin the Zulu _nambita_ \u2018to smack the lips after eating or tasting, and\nthence to be tasteful, to be pleasant to the mind.\u2019 This is an excellent\ninstance of the transition of mere imitative sound to the expression of\nmental emotion, and it corresponds with the imitative way in which the\nYakama language, in speaking of little children or pet animals,\nexpresses the verb \u2018to love\u2019 as _nem-no-sha_ (to make _n\u2019m-n\u2019_). In more\ncivilized countries these forms are mostly confined to baby-language.\nThe Chinese child\u2019s word for eating is _nam_, in English nurseries _nim_\nis noticed as answering the same purpose, and the Swedish dictionary\neven recognizes _namnam_ \u2018a tid-bit.\u2019\n\nAs for imitative names of animals derived from their cries or noises,\nthey are to be met with in every language from the Australian _twonk_\n\u2018frog,\u2019 the Yakama _rol-rol_ \u2018lark,\u2019 to the Coptic _eei\u014d_ \u2018ass,\u2019 the\nChinese _maou_ \u2018cat,\u2019 and the English _cuckoo_ and _peewit_. Their\ngeneral principle of formation being acknowledged, their further\nphilological interest turns mostly on cases where corresponding words\nhave thus been formed independently in distant regions, and those where\nthe imitative name of the creature, or its habitual sound, passes to\nexpress some new idea suggested by its character. The Sanskrit name of\nthe _k\u00e2ka_ crow reappears in the name of a similar bird in British\nColumbia, the _k\u00e1h-k\u00e1h_; a fly is called by the natives of Australia a\n_bumberoo_, like Sanskrit _bambhar\u00e2li_ \u2018fly,\u2019 Greek \u03b2\u03bf\u03bc-\u03b2\u03cd\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, and our\n_bumble_-bee. Analogous to the name of the _tse-tse_ fly, the terror of\nAfrican travellers, is _ntsintsi_, the word for \u2018fly\u2019 among the Basutos,\nwhich also, by a simple metaphor, serves to express the idea of \u2018a\nparasite.\u2019 Mr. H. W. Bates\u2019s description seems to settle the dispute\namong naturalists, whether the _toucan_ had its name from its cry or\nnot. He speaks of its loud, shrill, yelping cries having \u2018a vague\nresemblance to the syllables _toc\u00e1no, toc\u00e1no_, and hence the Indian name\nof this genus of birds.\u2019 Granting this, we can trace this sound-word\ninto a very new meaning; for it appears that the bird\u2019s monstrous bill\nhas suggested a name for a certain large-nosed tribe of Indians, who are\naccordingly called _Tucanos_.[286] The cock, gallo _quiquiriqui_, as the\nSpanish nursery-language calls him, has a long list of names from\nvarious languages which in various ways imitate his crowing; in Yoruba\nhe is called _koklo_, in Ibo _okoko_, _akoka_, in Zulu _kuku_, in\nFinnish _kukko_, in Sanskrit _kukkuta_, and so on. He is mentioned in\nthe Zend-Avesta in a very curious way, by a name which elaborately\nimitates his cry, but which the ancient Persians seem to have held\ndisrespectful to their holy bird, who rouses men from sleep to good\nthought, word, and work:\u2014\n\n       \u2018The bird who bears the name of Par\u00f4dars, O holy Zarathustra;\n       Upon whom evil-speaking men impose the name _Kabrkata\u00e7_.\u2019[287]\n\nThe crowing of the cock (Malay _k\u00e2luruk_, _kukuk_) serves to mark a\npoint of time, cockcrow. Other words originally derived from such\nimitation of crowing have passed into other curiously transformed\nmeanings: Old French _cocart_ \u2018vain;\u2019 modern French _coquet_ \u2018strutting\nlike a _cock_, _coquetting_, a _coxcomb_;\u2019 _cocarde_ \u2018a _cockade_\u2019 (from\nits likeness to a cock\u2019s comb); one of the best instances is\n_coquelicot_, a name given for the same reason to the wild poppy, and\neven more distinctly in Languedoc, where _cacarac\u00e1_ means both the\ncrowing and the flower. The hen in some languages has a name\ncorresponding to that of the cock, as in Kussa _kukuduna_ \u2018cock,\u2019\n_kukukasi_ \u2018hen;\u2019 Ewe _koklo-tsu_ \u2018cock,\u2019 _koklo-no_ \u2018hen;\u2019 and her\n_cackle_ (whence she has in Switzerland the name of _gugel_, _g\u00fcggel_)\nhas passed into language as a term for idle gossip and chatter of women,\n_caquet_, _caqueter_, _gackern_, much as the noise of a very different\ncreature seems to have given rise not only to its name, Italian\n_cicala_, but to a group of words represented by _cicalar_ \u2018to chirp,\nchatter, talk sillily.\u2019 The _pigeon_ is a good example of this kind,\nboth for sound and sense. It is Latin _pipio_, Italian _pippione_,\n_piccione_, _pigione_, modern Greek \u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, French _pipion_ (old),\n_pigeon_; its derivation is from the young bird\u2019s _peep_, Latin\n_pipire_, Italian _pipiare_, _pigiolare_, modern Greek \u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03b9\u03bd\u03af\u03b6\u03c9, to\nchirp; by an easy metaphor, a _pigeon_ comes to mean \u2018a silly young\nfellow easily caught,\u2019 to _pigeon_ \u2018to cheat,\u2019 Italian _pipione_ \u2018a\nsilly gull, one that is soon caught and trepanned,\u2019 _pippionare_ \u2018to\npigeon, to gull one.\u2019 In an entirely different family of languages, Mr.\nWedgwood points out a curiously similar process of derivation; Magyar\n_pipegni_, _pipelni_ \u2018to _peep_ or cheep;\u2019 _pipe_, _pip\u00f6k_ \u2018a chicken,\ngosling;\u2019 _pipe-ember_ (chicken-man), \u2018a silly young fellow,\nbooby.\u2019[288] The derivation of Greek \u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2, Latin _bos_, Welsh _bu_, from\nthe ox\u2019s lowing, or _booing_ as it is called in the north country, has\nbeen much debated. With an excessive desire to make Sanskrit answer as a\ngeneral Indo-European type, Bopp connected Sanskrit _go_, old German\n_chuo_, English _cow_, with these words, on the unusual and forced\nassumption of a change from guttural to labial.[289] The direct\nderivation from sound, however, is favoured by other languages,\nCochin-Chinese _bo_, Hottentot _bou_. The beast may almost answer for\nhimself in the words of that Spanish proverb which remarks that people\ntalk according to their nature: \u2018Habl\u00f3 el _buey_, y dij\u00f3 _bu!_\u2019 \u2018The ox\nspoke, and he said _boo!_\u2019\n\nAmong musical instruments with imitative names are the following:\u2014the\n_shee-shee-quoi_, the mystic rattle of the Red Indian medicine-man, an\nimitative word which reappears in the Darien Indian _shak-shak_, the\n_shook-shook_ of the Arawaks, the Chinook _shugh_ (whence\n_shugh-opoots_, rattletail, _i.e._, \u2018rattlesnake;\u2019)\u2014the drum, called\n_ganga_ in Haussa, _ga\u00f1ga\u00f1_ in the Yoruba country, _gunguma_ by the\nGallas, and having its analogue in the Eastern _gong_;\u2014the bell, called\nin Yakama (N. Amer.) _kwa-lal-kwa-lal_, in Yalof (W. Afr.) _walwal_, in\nRussian _kolokol_. The sound of the horn is imitated in English\nnurseries as _toot-toot_, and this is transferred to express the\n\u2018omnibus\u2019 of which the bugle is the signal: with this nursery word is to\nbe classed the Peruvian name for the \u2018shell-trumpet,\u2019 _pututu_, and the\nGothic _thuthaurn_ (_thut_-horn), which is even used in the Gothic Bible\nfor the last trumpet of the day of judgement,\u2014\u2018In sp\u00eadistin thutha\u00farna,\nthutha\u00farneith auk jah da\u00fathans ustandand\u2019 (I Cor. xv. 52). How such\nimitative words, when thoroughly taken up into language, suffer change\nof pronunciation in which the original sound-meaning is lost, may be\nseen in the English word _tabor_, which we might not recognize as a\nsound-word at all, did we not notice that it is French _tabour_, a word\nwhich in the form _tambour_ obviously belongs to a group of words for\ndrums, extending from the small rattling Arabic _tubl_ to the Indian\n_dundhubi_ and the _tombe_, the Moqui drum made of a hollowed log. The\nsame group shows the transfer of such imitative words to objects which\nare like the instrument, but have nothing to do with its sound; few\npeople who talk of _tambour_-work, and fewer still who speak of a\nfootstool as a _tabouret_, associate these words with the sound of a\ndrum, yet the connexion is clear enough. When these two processes go on\ntogether, and a sound-word changes its original sound on the one hand,\nand transfers its meaning to something else on the other, the result may\nsoon leave philological analysis quite helpless, unless by accident\nhistorical evidence is forthcoming. Thus with the English word _pipe_.\nPutting aside the particular pronunciation which we give the word, and\nreferring it back to its medi\u00e6val Latin or French sound in _pipa_,\n_pipe_, we have before us an evident imitative name of a musical\ninstrument, derived from a familiar sound used also to represent the\nchirping of chickens, Latin _pipire_, English to _peep_, as in the\ntranslation of Isaiah viii. 19: \u2018Seek ... unto wizards that _peep_, and\nthat mutter.\u2019 The Algonquin Indians appear to have formed from this\nsound _pib_ (with a grammatical suffix) their name for the _pib-e-gwun_\nor native flute. Now just as _tuba_, _tubus_, \u2018a trumpet\u2019 (itself very\nlikely an imitative word) has given a name for any kind of _tube_, so\nthe word _pipe_ has been transferred from the musical instrument to\nwhich it first belonged, and is used to describe tubes of various sorts,\ngas-pipes, water-pipes, and pipes in general. There is nothing unusual\nin these transitions of meaning, which are in fact rather the rule than\nthe exception. The _chibouk_ was originally a herdsman\u2019s pipe or flute\nin Central Asia. The _calumet_, popularly ranked with the tomahawk and\nthe mocassin among characteristic Red Indian words, is only the name for\na shepherd\u2019s pipe (Latin _calamus_) in the dialect of Normandy,\ncorresponding with the _chalumeau_ of literary French; for when the\nearly colonists in Canada saw the Indians performing the strange\noperation of smoking, \u2018with a hollow piece of stone or wood like a\npipe,\u2019 as Jacques Cartier has it, they merely gave to the native\ntobacco-pipe the name of the French musical instrument it resembled. Now\nchanges of sound and of sense like this of the English word _pipe_ must\nhave been in continual operation in hundreds of languages where we have\nno evidence to follow them by, and where we probably may never obtain\nsuch evidence. But what little we do know must compel us to do justice\nto the imitation of sound as a really existing process, capable of\nfurnishing an indefinitely large supply of words for things and actions\nwhich have no necessary connexion at all with that sound. Where the\ntraces of the transfer are lost, the result is a stock of words which\nare the despair of philologists, but are perhaps none the less fitted\nfor the practical use of men who simply want recognized symbols for\nrecognized ideas.\n\nThe claim of the Eastern _tomtom_ to have its name from a mere imitation\nof its sound seems an indisputable one; but when it is noticed in what\nvarious languages the beating of a resounding object is expressed by\nsomething like _tum_, _tumb_, _tump_, _tup_, as in Javan _tumbuk_,\nCoptic _tmno_, \u2018to pound in a mortar,\u2019 it becomes evident that the\nadmission involves more than at first sight appears. In Malay, _timpa_,\n_tampa_, is \u2018to beat out, hammer, forge;\u2019 in the Chinook Jargon\n_tum-tum_ is \u2018the heart,\u2019 and by combining the same sound with the\nEnglish word \u2018water,\u2019 a name is made for \u2018waterfall,\u2019 _tum-w\u00e2ta_. The\nGallas of East Africa declare that a box on the ear seems to them to\nmake a noise like _tub_, for they call its sound _tubdjeda_, that is,\n\u2018to say _tub_.\u2019 In the same language, _tuma_ is \u2018to beat,\u2019 whence\n_tumtu_, \u2018a workman, especially one who beats, a smith.\u2019 With the aid of\nanother imitative word, _bufa_ \u2018to blow,\u2019 the Gallas can construct this\nwholly imitative sentence, _tumtun bufa bufti_, \u2018the smith blows with\nbellows,\u2019 as an English child might say, \u2018the _tumtum puffs_ the\n_puffer_.\u2019 This imitative sound seems to have obtained a footing among\nthe Aryan verb-roots, as in Sanskrit _tup_, _tubh_ \u2018to smite,\u2019 while in\nGreek, _tup_, _tump_, has the meaning of \u2018to beat, to _thump_,\u2019\nproducing for instance \u03c4\u03cd\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, _tympanum_, \u2018a drum or _tomtom_.\u2019\nAgain, the verb to _crack_ has become in modern English as thorough a\nroot-word as the language possesses. The mere imitation of the sound of\nbreaking has passed into a verb to break; we speak of a _cracked_ cup or\na _cracked_ reputation without a thought of imitation of sound; but we\ncannot yet use the German _krachen_ or French _craquer_ in this way, for\nthey have not developed in meaning as our word has, but remain in their\npurely imitative stage. There are two corresponding Sanskrit words for\nthe saw, _kra-kara_, _kra-kacha_, that is to say, the \u2018_kra_-maker,\n_kra_-crier;\u2019 and it is to be observed that all such terms, which\nexpressly state that they are imitations of sound, are particularly\nvaluable evidence in these enquiries, for whatever doubt there may be as\nto other words being really derived from imitative sound, there can, of\ncourse, be none here. Moreover, there is evidence of the same sound\nhaving given rise to imitative words in other families of language,\nDahoman _kra-kra_, \u2018a watchman\u2019s rattle;\u2019 Grebo _grik\u00e2_ \u2018a saw;\u2019 Aino\n_chacha_ \u2018to saw;\u2019 Malay _graji_ \u2018a saw,\u2019 _karat_ \u2018to gnash the teeth,\u2019\n_karot_ \u2018to make a _grating_ noise;\u2019 Coptic _khrij_ \u2018to gnash the\nteeth,\u2019 _khrajrej_ \u2018to _grate_.\u2019 Another form of the imitation is given\nin the descriptive Galla expression _cacakdjeda_, _i.e._, \u2018to say\n_cacak_,\u2019 \u2018to _crack_, _krachen_.\u2019 With this sound corresponds a whole\nfamily of Peruvian words, of which the root seems to be the guttural\n_cca_, coming from far back in the throat; _ccallani_, \u2018to break,\u2019\n_ccatatani_, \u2018to gnash the teeth,\u2019 _ccac\u00f1iy_, \u2018thunder,\u2019 and the\nexpressive words for \u2018a thunder-storm,\u2019 _ccaccaccahay_, which carries\nthe imitative process so much farther than such European words as\nthunder-_clap_, donner-_klapf_. In Maori, _pata_ is \u2018to _patter_ as\nwater dropping, drops of rain.\u2019 The Manchu language describes the noise\nof fruits falling from the trees as _pata pata_ (so Hindustani\n_bhadbhad_); this is like our word _pat_, and we should say in the same\nmanner that the fruit comes _pattering_ down, while French _patatra_ is\na recognized imitation of something falling. Coptic _potpt_ is \u2018to\nfall,\u2019 and the Australian _badbadin_ (or _patpatin_) is translated into\nalmost literal English as _pitpatting_. On the strength of such\nnon-Aryan languages, are we to assign an imitative origin to the\nSanskrit verb-root _pat_, \u2018to fall,\u2019 and to Greek \u03c0\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03c9?\n\nWishing rather to gain a clear survey of the principles of\nlanguage-making than to plunge into obscure problems, it is not\nnecessary for me to discuss here questions of intricate detail. The\npoint which continually arises is this,\u2014granted that a particular kind\nof transition from sound to sense is possible in the abstract, may it be\nsafely claimed in a particular case? In looking through the vocabularies\nof the world, it appears that most languages offer words which, by\nobvious likeliness or by their correspondence with similar forms\nelsewhere, may put forward a tolerable claim to be considered imitative.\nSome languages, as Aztec or Mohawk, offer singularly few examples, while\nin others they are much more numerous. Take Australian cases: _walle_,\n\u2018to _wail_;\u2019 _bung-bung-ween_, \u2018thunder;\u2019 _wirriti_, \u2018to blow, as wind;\u2019\n_wirrirriti_, \u2018to storm, rage, as in fight;\u2019 _wirri_, _bwirri_, \u2018the\nnative throwing club,\u2019 seemingly so called from its _whir_ through the\nair; _kurarriti_, \u2018to hum, buzz;\u2019 _kurrirrurriri_, \u2018round about,\nunintelligible,\u2019 &c.; _pitata_, \u2018to knock, pelt, as rain,\u2019 _pitapitata_,\n\u2018to knock;\u2019 _wiiti_, \u2018to laugh, rejoice\u2019\u2014as in our own \u2018Turnament of\nTottenham\u2019:\u2014\n\n                    \u2018\u201c_We te he!_\u201d quoth Tyb, and lugh,\n                    \u201cYe er a dughty man!\u201d\u2019\n\nThe so-called Chinook Jargon of British Columbia is a language crowded\nwith imitative words, sometimes adopted from the native Indian\nlanguages, sometimes made on the spot by the combined efforts of the\nwhite man and the Indian to make one another understand. Samples of its\nquality are _h\u00f3h-hoh_, \u2018to cough,\u2019 _k\u00f3-ko_, \u2018to knock,\u2019\n_kwa-lal-kwa-lal_, \u2018to gallop,\u2019 _muck-a-muck_, \u2018to eat,\u2019 _chak-chak_,\n\u2018the bald eagle\u2019 (from its scream), _mamook tsish_ (make _tsish_), \u2018to\nsharpen on the grindstone.\u2019 It has been remarked by Prof. Max M\u00fcller\nthat the peculiar sound made in blowing out a candle is not a favourite\nin civilized languages, but it seems to be recognized here, for no doubt\nit is what the compiler of the vocabulary is doing his best to write\ndown when he gives _mamook poh_ (make _poh_) as the Chinook expression\nfor \u2018to blow out or extinguish as a candle.\u2019 This jargon is in great\nmeasure of new growth within the last seventy or eighty years, but its\nimitative words do not differ in nature from those of the more ordinary\nand old-established languages of the world. Thus among Brazilian tribes\nthere appear Tupi _coror\u00f3ng_, _cururuc_, \u2018to snore\u2019 (compare Coptic\n_kherkher_, Quichua _ccorcuni_ (_ccor_)), whence it appears that an\nimitation of a snore may perhaps serve the Caraj\u00e1s Indians to express\n\u2018to sleep\u2019 as _arourou-cr\u00e9_, as well as the related idea of \u2018night,\u2019\n_roou_. Again Pimenteira _ebaung_, \u2018to bruise, beat,\u2019 compares with\nYoruba _gba_, \u2018to slap,\u2019 _gb\u00e3_ (gbang) \u2018to sound loudly, to _bang_,\u2019 and\nso forth. Among African languages, the Zulu seems particularly rich in\nimitative words. Thus _bibiza_, \u2018to dribble like children, drivel in\nspeaking\u2019 (compare English _bib_); _babala_, \u2018the larger bush-antelope\u2019\n(from the _baa_ of the female); _boba_, \u2018to _babble_, chatter, be\nnoisy,\u2019 _bobi_, \u2018a _babbler_;\u2019 _boboni_, \u2018a throstle\u2019 (cries _bo! bo!_\ncompare American _bobolink_); _bomboloza_, \u2018to rumble in the bowels, to\nhave a bowel-complaint;\u2019 _bubula_, \u2018to _buzz_ like bees,\u2019 _bubulela_, \u2018a\nswarm of bees, a buzzing crowd of people;\u2019 _bubuluza_, \u2018to make a\nblustering noise, like frothing beer or boiling fat.\u2019 These examples,\nfrom among those given under one initial letter in one dictionary of one\nbarbaric language, may give an idea of the amount of the evidence from\nthe languages of the lower races bearing on the present problem.\n\nFor the present purpose of giving a brief series of examples of the sort\nof words in which imitative sound seems fairly traceable, the strongest\nand most manageable evidence is of course found among such words as\ndirectly describe sounds or what produces them, such as cries of and\nnames for animals, the terms for action accompanied by sound, and the\nmaterials and objects so acted upon. In further investigation it becomes\nmore and more requisite to isolate the sound-type or root from the\nmodifications and additions to which it has been subjected for\ngrammatical and phonetical adaptation. It will serve to give an idea of\nthe extent and intricacy of this problem, to glance at a group of words\nin one European language, and notice the etymological network which\nspreads round the German word _klapf_, in Grimm\u2019s dictionary, _klappen_,\n_klippen_, _klopfen_, _kl\u00e4ffen_, _klimpern_, _klampern_, _klateren_,\n_kloteren_, _klitteren_, _klatzen_, _klacken_, and more, to be matched\nwith allied forms in other languages. Setting aside the consideration of\ngrammatical inflexion, it belongs to the present subject to notice that\nman\u2019s imitative faculty in language is by no means limited to making\ndirect copies of sound and shaping them into words. It seizes upon\nready-made terms of whatever origin, alters and adapts them to make\ntheir sound fitting to their sense, and pours into the dictionaries a\nflood of adapted words of which the most difficult to analyse are those\nwhich are neither altogether etymological nor altogether imitative, but\npartly both. How words, while preserving, so to speak, the same\nskeleton, may be made to follow the variation of sound, of force, of\nduration, of size, an imitative group more or less connected with the\nlast will show\u2014_crick_, _creak_, _crack_, _crash_, _crush_, _crunch_,\n_craunch_, _scrunch_, _scraunch_. It does not at all follow that because\na word suffers such imitative and symbolic changes it must be, like\nthis, directly imitative in its origin. What, for instance, could sound\nmore imitative than the name of that old-fashioned cannon for throwing\ngrape-shot, the _patterero_? Yet the etymology of the word appears in\nthe Spanish form _pedrero_, French _perrier_; it means simply an\ninstrument for throwing stones (_piedra_, _pierre_), and it was only\nwhen the Spanish word was adopted in England that the imitative faculty\ncaught and transformed it into an apparent sound-word, resembling the\nverb to _patter_. The propensity of language, especially in slang, to\nmake sense of strange words by altering them into something with an\nappropriate meaning has been often dwelt upon by philologists, but the\npropensity to alter words into something with an appropriate sound has\nproduced results immensely more important. The effects of symbolic\nchange of sound acting upon verb-roots seem almost boundless. The verb\nto _waddle_ has a strong imitative appearance, and so in German we can\nhardly resist the suggestion that imitative sound has to do with the\ndifference between _wandern_ and _wandeln_; but all these verbs belong\nto a family represented by Sanskrit _vad_, to go, Latin _vado_, and to\nthis root there seems no sufficient ground for assigning an imitative\norigin, the traces of which it has at any rate lost if it ever had them.\nThus, again, to _stamp_ with the foot, which has been claimed as an\nimitation of sound, seems only a \u2018coloured\u2019 word. The root _sta_, \u2018to\nstand,\u2019 Sanskrit _sth\u00e2_, forms a causative _stap_, Sanskrit _sth\u00e2pay_,\n\u2018to make to stand,\u2019 English to _stop_, and a foot-_step_ is when the\nfoot comes to a stand, a foot-_stop_. But we have Anglo-Saxon _stapan_,\n_st\u00e6pan_, _steppan_, English to _step_, varying to express its meaning\nby sound in to _staup_, to _stamp_, to _stump_, and to _stomp_,\ncontrasting in their violence or clumsy weight with the foot on the\nDorset cottage-sill in Barnes\u2019s poem:\u2014\n\n               \u2018Where love do seek the ma\u00efden\u2019s even\u00e8n vloor,\n               Wi\u2019 _stip-step light_, an tip-tap slight\n                                   Age\u00e4n the door.\u2019\n\nBy expanding, modifying, or, so to speak, colouring, sound is able to\nproduce effects closely like those of gesture-language, expressing\nlength or shortness of time, strength or weakness of action, and then\npassing into a further stage to describe greatness or smallness of size\nor of distance, and thence making its way into the widest fields of\nmetaphor. And it does all this with a force which is surprising when we\nconsider how childishly simple are the means employed. Thus the Bachapin\nof Africa call a man with the cry _h\u00e9la!_ but according as he is far or\nfarther off the sound of the _h\u00eaela!_ _h\u00ea-\u00ea-la!_ is lengthened out. Mr.\nMacgregor in his \u2018Rob Roy on the Jordan,\u2019 graphically describes this\nmethod of expression, \u2018\u201cBut where is Zalmouda?\u201d... Then with rough\neagerness the strongest of the Dowana faction pushes his long forefinger\nforward, pointing straight enough\u2014but whither? and with a volley of\nwords ends, _Ah-ah-a-a-a\u2014\u2014a-a_. This strange expression had long before\npuzzled me when first heard from a shepherd in Bashan.... But the simple\nmeaning of this long string of \u201c_ah\u2019s_\u201d shortened, and quickened, and\nlowered in tone to the end, is merely that the place pointed to is a\n\u201cvery great way off.\u201d\u2019 The Chinook Jargon, as usual representing\nprimitive developments of language, uses a similar device in lengthening\nthe sound of words to indicate distance. The Siamese can, by varying the\ntone-accent, make the syllable _non_, \u2018there,\u2019 express a near,\nindefinite, or far distance, and in like manner can modify the meaning\nof such a word as _ny_, \u2018little.\u2019 In the Gaboon, the strength with which\nsuch a word as _mpolu_, \u2018great,\u2019 is uttered serves to show whether it is\ngreat, very great, or very very great, and in this way, as Mr. Wilson\nremarks in his Mpongwe Grammar, \u2018the comparative degrees of greatness,\nsmallness, hardness, rapidity, and strength, &c., may be conveyed with\nmore accuracy and precision than could readily be conceived.\u2019 In\nMadagascar _ratchi_ means \u2018bad,\u2019 but _r\u00e2tchi_ is \u2018very bad.\u2019 The natives\nof Australia, according to Oldfield, show the use of this process in\ncombination with that of symbolic reduplication: among the Watchandie\ntribe _jir-rie_ signifies \u2018already or past,\u2019 _jir-rie jir-rie_ indicates\n\u2018a long time ago,\u2019 while _jie-r-rie jirrie_ (the first syllable being\ndwelt on for some time) signifies \u2018an immense time ago.\u2019 Again,\n_boo-rie_ is \u2018small,\u2019 _boo-rie-boo-rie_ \u2018very small,\u2019 and _b-o-rie\nboorie_ \u2018exceedingly small.\u2019 Wilhelm von Humboldt notices the habit of\nthe southern Guarani dialect of South America of dwelling more or less\ntime on the suffix of the perfect tense, _yma_, _y\u2014ma_, to indicate the\nlength or shortness of the distance of time at which the action took\nplace; and it is curious to observe that a similar contrivance is made\nuse of among the aboriginal tribes of India, where the Ho language forms\na future tense by adding _\u00e1_ to the root, and prolonging its sound,\n_kajee_ \u2018to speak,\u2019 Amg _kaj\u0113\u0113\u00e1_ \u2018I will speak.\u2019 As might be expected,\nthe languages of very rude tribes show extremely well how the results of\nsuch primitive processes pass into the recognized stock of language.\nNothing could be better for this than the words by which one of the\nrudest of living races, the Botocudos of Brazil, express the sea. They\nhave a word for a stream, _ouatou_, and an adjective which means great,\n_ijipakijiou_; thence the two words \u2018stream-great,\u2019 a little\nstrengthened in the vowels, will give the term for a river,\n_ouatou-ijiipakiiijou_, as it were, \u2018stream-grea-at,\u2019 and this,\nto express the immensity of the ocean, is amplified into\n_ouatou-iijipakiijou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou_. Another tribe of the same family\nworks out the same result more simply; the word _ouatou_, \u2018stream,\u2019\nbecomes _ouatou-ou-ou-ou_, \u2018the sea.\u2019 The Chavantes very naturally\nstretch the expression _rom-o-wodi_, \u2018I go a long way,\u2019 into\n_rom-o-o-o-o-wodi_, \u2018I go a very long way indeed,\u2019 and when they are\ncalled upon to count beyond five they say it is _ka-o-o-oki_, by which\nthey evidently mean it is a very great many. The Cauixanas in one\nvocabulary are described as saying _lawauugabi_ for four, and drawling\nout the same word for five, as if to say \u2018a long four,\u2019 in somewhat the\nsame way as the Aponegicrans, whose word for six is _itawuna_, can\nexpand this into a word for seven, _itawu\u016bna_, obviously thus meaning a\n\u2018long six.\u2019 In their earlier and simpler stages nothing can be more easy\nto comprehend than these, so to speak, pictorial modifications of words.\nIt is true that writing, even with the aid of italics and capitals,\nignores much of this symbolism in spoken language, but every child can\nsee its use and meaning, in spite of the efforts of book-learning and\nschool-teaching to set aside whatever cannot be expressed by their\nimperfect symbols, nor controlled by their narrow rules. But when we try\nto follow out to their full results these methods, at first so easy to\ntrace and appreciate, we soon find them passing out of our grasp. The\nlanguage of the Sahaptin Indians shows us a process of modifying words\nwhich is far from clear, and yet not utterly obscure. These Indians have\na way of making a kind of disrespectful diminutive by changing the _n_\nin a word to _l_; thus _twinwt_ means \u2018tailless,\u2019 but to indicate\nparticular smallness, or to express contempt, they make this into\n_twilwt_, pronounced with an appropriate change of tone; and again,\n_wana_ means \u2018river,\u2019 but this is made into a diminutive _wala_ by\n\u2018changing _n_ into _l_, giving the voice a different tone, putting the\nlips out in speaking, and keeping them suspended around the jaw.\u2019 Here\nwe are told enough about the change of pronunciation to guess at least\nhow it could convey the notions of smallness and contempt. But it is\nless easy to follow the process by which the Mpongwe language turns an\naffirmative into a negative verb by \u2018an intonation upon, or prolongation\nof the radical vowel,\u2019 _t\u014fnda_, to love, _t\u014fnda_, not to love; _t\u014fndo_,\nto be loved, _t\u014fndo_, not to be loved. So Yoruba, _b\u00e1ba_, \u2018a great\nthing,\u2019 _b\u00e0ba_, \u2018a small thing,\u2019 contrasted in a proverb, \u2018_Baba_ bo,\n_baba_ molle\u2019\u2014\u2018A great matter puts a smaller out of sight.\u2019 Language is,\nin fact, full of phonetic modifications which justify a suspicion that\nsymbolic sound had to do with their production, though it may be hard to\nsay exactly how.\n\nAgain, there is the familiar process of reduplication, simple or\nmodified, which produces such forms as _murmur_, _pitpat_,\n_helterskelter_. This action, though much restricted in literary\ndialects, has such immense scope in the talk of children and savages\nthat Professor Pott\u2019s treatise on it[290] has become incidentally one of\nthe most valuable collections of facts ever made with relation to early\nstages of language. Now up to a certain point any child can see how and\nwhy such doubling is done, and how it always adds something to the\noriginal idea. It may make superlatives or otherwise intensify words, as\nin Polynesia _loa_ \u2018long,\u2019 _lololoa_ \u2018very long\u2019; Mandingo _ding_ \u2018a\nchild,\u2019 _dingding_ \u2018a very little child.\u2019 It makes plurals, as Malay\n_raja-raja_ \u2018princes,\u2019 _orang-orang_ \u2018people.\u2019 It adds numerals, as\nMosquito _walwal_ \u2018four\u2019 (two-two), or distributes them, as Coptic _ouai\nouai_ \u2018singly\u2019 (one-one). These are cases where the motive of doubling\nis comparatively easy to make out. As an example of cases much more\ndifficult to comprehend may be taken the familiar reduplication of the\nperfect tense, Greek \u03b3\u03ad\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1 from \u03b3\u03c1\u03ac\u03c6\u03c9, Latin _momordi_ from _mordeo_,\nGothic _haihald_ from _haldan_, \u2018to hold.\u2019 Reduplication is habitually\nused in imitative words to intensify them, and still more, to show that\nthe sound is repeated or continuous. From the immense mass of such words\nwe may take as instances the Botocudo _hou-hou-hou-gitcha_ \u2018to suck\u2019\n(compare Tongan _h\u016bh\u016b_ \u2018breast\u2019), _kiaku-k\u00e4ck-k\u00e4ck_, \u2018a butterfly\u2019;\nQuichua _chiuiuiui\u00f1ichi_ \u2018wind whistling in the trees\u2019; Maori _haruru_\n\u2018noise of wind\u2019; _hohoro_ \u2018hurry\u2019; Dayak _kakakkaka_ \u2018to go on laughing\nloud\u2019; Aino _shiriushiriukanni_ \u2018a rasp\u2019; Tamil _murumuru_ \u2018to\n_murmur_\u2019; Akra _ewiewiewiewie_ \u2018he spoke repeatedly and continually\u2019;\nand so on, throughout the whole range of the languages of the world.\n\nThe device of conveying different ideas of distance by the use of a\ngraduated scale of vowels seems to me one of great philological\ninterest, from the suggestive hint it gives of the proceedings of the\nlanguage-makers in most distant regions of the world, working out in\nvarious ways a similar ingenious contrivance of expression by sound. A\ntypical series is the Javan: _iki_ \u2018this\u2019 (close by) _ika_ \u2018that\u2019 (at\nsome distance); _iku_ \u2018that\u2019 (farther off). It is not likely that the\nfollowing list nearly exhausts the whole number of cases in the\nlanguages of the world, for about half the number have been incidentally\nnoted down by myself without any especial search, but merely in the\ncourse of looking over vocabularies of the lower races.[291]\n\n    Javan ... _iki_, this; _ika_, that (intermediate); _iku_, that.\n\n    Malagasy ... _ao_, there (at a short distance); _eo_, there (at a\n    shorter distance); _io_, there (close at hand). _atsy_, there (not\n    far off); _etsy_, there (nearer); _itsy_, this or these.\n\n    Japanese ... _ko_, here; _ka_, there. _korera_, these; _karera_,\n    they (those).\n\n    Canarese ... _ivanu_, this; _uvanu_, that (intermediate); _avanu_,\n    that.\n\n    Tamul ... _\u00ee_, this; _\u00e2_, that.\n\n    Rajmahali ... _\u00eeh_, this; _\u00e2h_, that.\n\n    Dhimal ... _isho_, _ita_, here; _usho_, _uta_, there. _iti_,\n    _idong_, this; _uti_, _udong_, that (of things and persons\n    respectively).\n\n    Abchasian ... _abri_, this; _ubri_, that.\n\n    Ossetic ... _am_, here; _um_, there.\n\n    Magyar ... _ez_, this; _az_, that.\n\n    Zulu ... _apa_, here; _apo_, there. _lesi_, _leso_, _lesiya_; _abu_,\n    _abo_, _abuya_; &c. = this, that, that (in the distance).\n\n    Yoruba ... _na_, this; _ni_, that.\n\n    Fernandian ... _olo_, this; _ole_, that.\n\n    Tumale ... _re_, this; _ri_, that. _ngi_, I; _ngo_, thou; _ngu_, he.\n\n    Greenlandish ... _uv_, here, there (where one points to); _iv_,\n    there, up there.\n\n    Sujelpa (Coleville Ind.) ... _aa_, this; _ii_, that.\n\n    Sahaptin ... _kina_, here; _kuna_, there.\n\n    Mutsun ... _ne_, here; _nu_, there.\n\n    Tarahumara ... _ibe_, here; _abe_, there.\n\n    Guarani ... _nde_, _ne_, thou; _ndi_, _ni_, he.\n\n    Botocudo ... _ati_, I; _oti_, thou, you, (prep.) to.\n\n    Carib ... _ne_, thou; _ni_, he.\n\n    Chilian ... _tva_, _vachi_, this; _tvey_, _veychi_, that.\n\nIt is obvious on inspection of this list of pronouns and adverbs that\nthey have in some way come to have their vowels contrasted to match the\ncontrast of here and there, this and that. Accident may sometimes\naccount for such cases. For instance it is well known to philologists\nthat our own _this_ and _that_ are pronouns partly distinct in their\nformation, _thi-s_ being probably two pronouns run together, but yet the\nDutch neuters _dit_ \u2018this,\u2019 and _dat_ \u2018that,\u2019 have taken the appearance\nof a single form with contrasted vowels.[292] But accident cannot\naccount for the frequency of such words in pairs, and even in sets of\nthree, in so many different languages. There must have been some common\nintention at work, and there is evidence that some of these languages do\nresort to a change of sound as a means of expressing change of distance.\nThus the language of Fernando Po can not only express \u2018this\u2019 and \u2018that\u2019\nby _olo_, _ole_, but it can even make a change of the pronunciation of\nthe vowel distinguish between _o boehe_ \u2018this month,\u2019 and _oh boehe_,\n\u2018that month.\u2019 In the same way the Grebo can make the difference between\n\u2018I\u2019 and \u2018thou,\u2019 \u2018we,\u2019 and \u2018you,\u2019 \u2018solely by the intonation of the voice,\nwhich the final _h_ of the second persons _m\u00e2h_ and _\u0103h_ is intended to\nexpress.\u2019\n\n                   _m\u00e2_ di, I eat; _m\u00e2h_ di, thou eatest;\n                   _\u0103_ di, we eat; _\u0103h_ di, ye eat.\n\nThe set of Zulu demonstratives which express the three distances of\nnear, farther, farthest, are very complex, but a remark as to their use\nshows how thoroughly symbolic sound enters into their nature. The Zulus\nnot only say _nansi_, \u2018here is,\u2019 _nanso_, \u2018there is,\u2019 _nansiya_, \u2018there\nis in the distance,\u2019 but they even express the greatness of this\ndistance by the emphasis and prolongation of the _ya_. If we could\ndiscern a similar gradation of the vowels to express a corresponding\ngradation of distance throughout our list, the whole matter would be\neasier to explain; but it is not so, the _i_-words for instance, are\nsometimes nearer and sometimes farther off than the _a_-words. We can\nonly judge that, as even children can see that a scale of vowels makes a\nmost expressive scale of distances, many pronouns and adverbs in use in\nthe world have probably taken their shape under the influence of this\nsimple device, and thus there have arisen sets of what we may call\ncontrasted or \u2018differential\u2019 words.\n\nHow the differencing of words by change of vowels may be used to\ndistinguish between the sexes, is well put in a remark of Professor Max\nM\u00fcller\u2019s: \u2018The distinction of gender ... is sometimes expressed in such\na manner that we can only explain it by ascribing an expressive power to\nthe more or less obscure sound of vowels. _Ukko_, in Finnic, is an old\nman; _akka_, an old woman.... In Mandshu _chacha_ is mas. ... _cheche_,\nfemina. Again, _ama_, in Mandshu, is father; _eme_, mother; _amcha_,\nfather-in-law, _emche_, mother-in-law.\u2019[293] The Coret\u00fa language of\nBrazil has another curiously contrasted pair of words _ts\u00e1ack\u00f6_,\n\u2018father,\u2019 _tsaacko_ \u2018mother,\u2019 while the Carib has _baba_ for father, and\n_bibi_ for mother, and the Ibu of Africa has _nna_ for father and _nne_\nfor mother. This contrivance of distinguishing the male from the female\nby a difference of vowels is however but a small part of the process of\nformation which can be traced among such words as those for father and\nmother. Their consideration leads into a very interesting philological\nregion, that of \u2018Children\u2019s language.\u2019\n\nIf we set down a few of the pairs of words which stand for \u2018father\u2019 and\n\u2018mother\u2019 in very different and distant languages\u2014_papa_ and _mama_;\nWelsh, _tad_ (_dad_) and _mam_; Hungarian, _atya_ and _anya_; Mandingo,\n_fa_ and _ba_; Lummi (N. America), _man_ and _tan_; Catoquina (S.\nAmerica), _pay\u00fa_ and _nay\u00fa_; Watchandie (Australia), _amo_ and\n_ago_\u2014their contrast seems to lie in their consonants, while many other\npairs differ totally, like Hebrew _ab_ and _im_; Kuki, _p\u2019ha_ and _noo_;\nKayan, _amay_ and _inei_; Tarahumara, _nono_ and _jeje_. Words of the\nclass of _papa_ and _mama_, occurring in remote parts of the world, were\nonce freely used as evidence of a common origin of the languages in\nwhich they were found alike. But Professor Buschmann\u2019s paper on\n\u2018Nature-Sound,\u2019 published in 1853,[294] effectually overthrew this\nargument, and settled the view that such coincidence might arise again\nand again by independent production. It was clearly of no use to argue\nthat Carib and English were allied because the word _papa_, \u2018father,\u2019\nbelongs to both, or Hottentot and English because both use _mama_ for\n\u2018mother,\u2019 seeing that these childish articulations may be used in just\nthe opposite way, for the Chilian word for mother is _papa_, and the\nTlatskanai for father is _mama_. Yet the choice of easy little words for\n\u2018father\u2019 and \u2018mother\u2019 does not seem to have been quite indiscriminate.\nThe immense list of such words collected by Buschmann shows that the\ntypes _pa_ and _ta_, with the similar forms _ap_ and _at_, preponderate\nin the world as names for \u2018father,\u2019 while _ma_ and _na, am_ and _an_,\npreponderate as names for \u2018mother.\u2019 His explanation of this state of\nthings as affected by direct symbolism choosing the hard sound for the\nfather, and the gentler for the mother, has very likely truth in it, but\nit must not be pushed too far. It cannot be, for instance, the same\nprinciple of symbolism which leads the Welshmen to say _tad_ for\n\u2018father\u2019 and _mam_ for \u2018mother,\u2019 and the Indian of British Columbia to\nsay _maan_, \u2018father\u2019 and _taan_, \u2018mother,\u2019 or the Georgian to say _mama_\n\u2018father\u2019 and _deda_ \u2018mother.\u2019 Yet I have not succeeded in finding\nanywhere our familiar _papa_ and _mama_ exactly reversed in one and the\nsame language; the nearest approach to it that I can give is from the\nisland of Meang, where _mama_ meant \u2018father, man,\u2019 and _babi_, \u2018mother,\nwoman.\u2019[295]\n\nBetween the nursery words _papa_ and _mama_ and the more formal _father_\nand _mother_ there is an obvious resemblance in sound. What, then, is\nthe origin of these words _father_ and _mother_? Up to a certain point\ntheir history is clear. They belong to the same group of organized words\nwith _vater_ and _mutter_, _pater_ and _mater_, \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1 and \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1, _pitar_\nand _m\u00e2tar_, and other similar forms through the Indo-European family of\nlanguages. There is no doubt that all these pairs of names are derived\nfrom an ancient and common Aryan source, and when they are traced back\nas far as possible towards that source, they appear to have sprung from\na pair of words which may be roughly called _patar_ and _matar_, and\nwhich were formed by adding _tar_, the suffix of the actor, to the\nverb-roots _pa_ and _ma_. There being two appropriate Sanskrit verbs\n_p\u00e2_ and _m\u00e2_, it is possible to etymologize the two words as _patar_,\n\u2018protector,\u2019 and _matar_, \u2018producer.\u2019 Now this pair of Aryan words must\nhave been very ancient, lying back at the remote common source from\nwhich forms parallel to our English _father_ and _mother_ passed into\nGreek and Persian, Norse and Armenian, thus holding fixed type through\nthe eventful course of Indo-European history. Yet, ancient as these\nwords are, they were no doubt preceded by simpler rudimentary words of\nthe children\u2019s language, for it is not likely that the primitive Aryans\ndid without baby-words for father and mother until they had an organized\nsystem of adding suffixes to verb-roots to express such notions as\n\u2018protector\u2019 or \u2018producer.\u2019 Nor can it be supposed that it was by mere\naccident that the root-words thus chosen happened to be the very sounds\n_pa_ and _ma_, whose types so often occur in the remotest parts of the\nworld as names for \u2018father\u2019 and \u2018mother.\u2019 Prof. Adolphe Pictet makes\nshift to account for the coincidence thus: he postulates first the pair\nof forms _p\u00e2_ and _m\u00e2_ as Aryan verb-roots of unknown origin, meaning\n\u2018to protect\u2019 and \u2018to create,\u2019 next another pair of forms _pa_ and _ma_,\nchildren\u2019s words commonly used to denote father and mother, and lastly\nhe combines the two by supposing that the root-verbs _p\u00e2_ and _m\u00e2_ were\nchosen to form the Indo-European words for parents, because of their\nresemblance to the familiar baby-words already in use. This circuitous\nprocess at any rate saves those sacred monosyllables, the Sanskrit\nverb-roots, from the disgrace of an assignable origin. Yet those who\nremember that these verb-roots are only a set of crude forms in use in\none particular language of the world at one particular period of its\ndevelopment, may account for the facts more simply and more thoroughly.\nIt is a fair guess that the ubiquitous _pa_ and _ma_ of the children\u2019s\nlanguage were the original forms; that they were used in an early period\nof Aryan speech as indiscriminately substantive and verb, just as our\nmodern English, which so often reproduces the most rudimentary\nlinguistic processes, can form from the noun \u2018father\u2019 a verb \u2018to\nfather;\u2019 and that lastly they became verb-roots, whence the words\n_patar_ and _matar_ were formed by the addition of the suffix.[296]\n\nThe baby-names for parents must not be studied as though they stood\nalone in language. They are only important members of a great class of\nwords, belonging to all times and countries within our experience, and\nforming a children\u2019s language, whose common character is due to its\nconcerning itself with the limited set of ideas in which little children\nare interested, and expressing these ideas by the limited set of\narticulations suited to the child\u2019s first attempts to talk. This\npeculiar language is marked quite characteristically among the low\nsavage tribes of Australia; _mamman_ \u2018father,\u2019 _ngangan_ \u2018mother,\u2019 and\nby metaphor \u2018thumb,\u2019 \u2018great toe\u2019 (as is more fully explained in\n_jinnamamman_ \u2018great toe,\u2019 i.e. foot\u2019s father), _tammin_ \u2018grandfather or\ngrandmother,\u2019 _bab-ba_ \u2018bad, foolish, childish,\u2019 _bee-bee_, _beep_\n\u2018breast,\u2019 _pappi_ \u2018father,\u2019 _pappa_ \u2018young one, _pup_, whelp,\u2019 (whence\nis grammatically formed the verb _papparniti_ \u2018to become a young one, to\nbe born.\u2019) Or if we look for examples from India, it does not matter\nwhether we take them from non-Hindu or Hindu languages, for in\nbaby-language all races are on one footing. Thus Tamil _app\u00e2_ \u2018father,\u2019\n_amm\u00e2_ \u2018mother,\u2019 Bodo _aph\u00e2_ \u2018father,\u2019 _\u00e2y\u00e2_ \u2018mother;\u2019 the Kocch group\n_n\u00e2n\u00e2_ and _n\u00e2ni_ \u2018paternal grandfather and grandmother,\u2019 _m\u00e2m\u00e2_\n\u2018uncle,\u2019 _d\u00e2d\u00e2_ \u2018cousin,\u2019 may be set beside Sanskrit _tata_ \u2018father,\u2019\n_nan\u00e2_ \u2018mother,\u2019 and the Hindustani words of the same class, of which\nsome are familiar to the English ear by being naturalized in\nAnglo-Indian talk, _b\u00e2b\u00e2_ \u2018father,\u2019 _b\u00e2b\u00fb_ \u2018child, prince, Mr.,\u2019 _b\u00eeb\u00ee_\n\u2018lady,\u2019 _dad\u00e2_ \u2018nurse\u2019 (_\u00e2y\u00e2_ \u2018nurse\u2019 seems borrowed from Portuguese).\nSuch words are continually coming fresh into existence everywhere, and\nthe law of natural selection determines their fate. The great mass of\nthe _nana\u2019s_ and _dada\u2019s_ of the nursery die out almost as soon as made.\nSome few take more root and spread over large districts as accepted\nnursery words, and now and then a curious philologist makes a collection\nof them. Of such, many are obvious mutilations of longer words, as\nFrench faire _dodo_ \u2018to sleep\u2019 (dormir), Brandenburg _wiwi_, a common\ncradle lullaby (wiegen). Others, whatever their origin, fall, in\nconsequence of the small variety of articulations out of which they must\nbe chosen, into a curiously indiscriminate and unmeaning mass, as Swiss\n_bobo_ \u2018a scratch;\u2019 _bambam_ \u2018all gone;\u2019 Italian _bob\u00f2_ \u2018something to\ndrink,\u2019 _gogo_ \u2018little boy,\u2019 for _dede_ \u2018to play.\u2019 These are words\nquoted by Pott, and for English examples _nana_ \u2018nurse,\u2019 _tata!_\n\u2018good-bye!\u2019 may serve. But all _baby_-words, as this very name proves,\ndo not stop short even at this stage of publicity. A small proportion of\nthem establish themselves in the ordinary talk of grown-up men and\nwomen, and when they have once made good their place as constituents of\ngeneral language, they may pass on by inheritance from age to age. Such\nexamples as have been here quoted of nursery words give a clue to the\norigin of a mass of names in the most diverse languages, for father,\nmother, grandmother, aunt, child, breast, toy, doll, &c. The negro of\nFernando Po who uses the word _bubboh_ for \u2018a little boy,\u2019 is on equal\nterms with the German who uses _bube_; the Congo-man who uses _tata_ for\n\u2018father\u2019 would understand how the same word could be used in classic\nLatin for \u2018father,\u2019 and in medi\u00e6val Latin for \u2018pedagogue;\u2019 the Carib and\nthe Caroline Islander agree with the Englishman that _papa_ is a\nsuitable word to express \u2018father,\u2019 and then it only remains to carry on\nthe word, and make the baby-language name the priests of the Eastern\nChurch and the great _Papa_ of the Western. At the same time the\nevidence explains the indifference with which, out of the small stock of\navailable materials, the same sound does duty for the most different\nideas; why _mama_ means here \u2018mother,\u2019 there \u2018father,\u2019 there \u2018uncle,\u2019\n_maman_ here \u2018mother,\u2019 there \u2018father-in-law,\u2019 _dada_ here \u2018father,\u2019\nthere \u2018nurse,\u2019 there \u2018breast,\u2019 _tata_ here \u2018father,\u2019 there \u2018son.\u2019 A\nsingle group of words may serve to show the character of this peculiar\nregion of language: Blackfoot Indian _ninnah_ \u2018father;\u2019 Greek \u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\n\u2018uncle,\u2019 \u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1 \u2018aunt;\u2019 Zulu _nina_, Sangir _nina_, Malagasy _nini_\n\u2018mother;\u2019 Javan _nini_ \u2018grandfather or grandmother;\u2019 Vayu _nini_\n\u2018paternal aunt;\u2019 Darien Indian _ninah_ \u2018daughter;\u2019 Spanish _ni\u00f1o_,\n_ni\u00f1a_ \u2018child;\u2019 Italian _ninna_ \u2018little girl;\u2019 Milanese _ninin_ \u2018bed;\u2019\nItalian _ninnare_ \u2018to rock the cradle.\u2019\n\nIn this way a dozen easy child\u2019s articulations, _ba\u2019s_ and _na\u2019s_,\n_ti\u2019s_ and _de\u2019s_, _pa\u2019s_ and _ma\u2019s_, serve almost as indiscriminately\nto express a dozen child\u2019s ideas as though they had been shaken in a bag\nand pulled out at random to express the notion that came first, doll or\nuncle, nurse or grandfather. It is obvious that among words cramped to\nsuch scanty choice of articulate sounds, speculations as to derivation\nmust be more than usually unsafe. Looked at from this point of view,\nchildren\u2019s language may give a valuable lesson to the philologist. He\nhas before him a kind of language, formed, under peculiar conditions,\nand showing the weak points of his method of philological research, only\nexaggerated into extraordinary distinctness. In ordinary language, the\ndifficulty of connecting sound with sense lies in great measure in the\ninability of a small and rigid set of articulations to express an\ninterminable variety of tones and noises. In children\u2019s language, a\nstill more scanty set of articulations fails yet more to render these\ndistinctly. The difficulty of finding the derivation of words lies in\ngreat measure in the use of more or less similar root-sounds for most\nheterogeneous purposes. To assume that two words of different meanings,\njust because they sound somewhat alike, must therefore have a common\norigin, is even in ordinary language the great source of bad etymology.\nBut in children\u2019s language the theory of root-sounds fairly breaks down.\nFew would venture to assert, for instance, that _papa_ and _pap_ have a\ncommon derivation or a common root. All that we can safely say of\nconnexion between them is that they are words related by common\nacceptance in the nursery language. As such, they are well marked in\nancient Rome as in modern England: _papas_ \u2018nutricius, nutritor,\u2019\n_pappus_ \u2018senex;\u2019 \u2018cum cibum et potum _buas_ ac _papas_ dicunt, et\nmatrem _mammam_, patrem _tatam_ (or _papam_).\u2019[297]\n\nFrom children\u2019s language, moreover, we have striking proof of the power\nof consensus of society, in establishing words in settled use without\ntheir carrying traces of inherent expressiveness. It is true that\nchildren are intimately acquainted with the use of emotional and\nimitative sound, and their vocal intercourse largely consists of such\nexpression. The effects of this are in some degree discernible in the\nclass of words we are considering. But it is obvious that the leading\nprinciple of their formation is not to adopt words distinguished by the\nexpressive character of their sound, but to choose somehow a fixed word\nto answer a given purpose. To do this, different languages have chosen\nsimilar articulations to express the most diverse and opposite ideas.\nNow in the language of grown-up people, it is clear that social\nconsensus has worked in the same way. Even if the extreme supposition be\ngranted, that the ultimate origin of every word of language lies in\ninherently expressive sound, this only partly affects the case, for it\nwould have to be admitted that, in actual languages, most words have so\nfar departed in sound or sense from this originally expressive stage,\nthat to all intents and purposes they might at first have been\narbitrarily chosen. The main principle of language has been, not to\npreserve traces of original sound-signification for the benefit of\nfuture etymologists, but to fix elements of language to serve as\ncounters for practical reckoning of ideas. In this process much original\nexpressiveness has no doubt disappeared beyond all hope of recovery.\n\nSuch are some of the ways in which vocal sounds seem to have commended\nthemselves to the mind of the word-maker as fit to express his meaning,\nand to have been used accordingly. I do not think that the evidence here\nadduced justifies the setting-up of what is called the Interjectional\nand Imitative Theory as a complete solution of the problem of original\nlanguage. Valid as this theory proves itself within limits, it would be\nincautious to accept a hypothesis which can perhaps satisfactorily\naccount for a twentieth of the crude forms in any language, as a certain\nand absolute explanation of the nineteen-twentieths whose origin remains\ndoubtful. A key must unlock more doors than this, to be taken as the\nmaster-key. Moreover, some special points which have come under\nconsideration in these chapters tend to show the positive necessity of\nsuch caution in theorizing. Too narrow a theory of the application of\nsound to sense may fail to include the varied devices which the\nlanguages of different regions turn to account. It is thus with the\ndistinction in meaning of a word by its musical accent, and the\ndistinction of distance by graduated vowels. These are ingenious and\nintelligible contrivances, but they hardly seem directly emotional or\nimitative in origin. A safer way of putting the theory of a natural\norigin of language is to postulate the original utterance of ideas in\nwhat may be called self-expressive sounds, without defining closely\nwhether their expression lay in emotional tone, imitative noise,\ncontrast of accent or vowel or consonant, or other phonetic quality.\nEven here, exception of unknown and perhaps enormous extent must be made\nfor sounds chosen by individuals to express some notion, from motives\nwhich even their own minds failed to discern, but which sounds\nnevertheless made good their footing in the language of the family, the\ntribe, and the nation. There may be many modes even of recognizable\nphonetic expression, unknown to us as yet. So far, however, as I have\nbeen able to trace them here, such modes have in common a claim to\nbelong not exclusively to the scheme of this or that particular dialect,\nbut to wide-ranging principles of formation of language. Their examples\nare to be drawn with equal cogency from Sanskrit or Hebrew, from the\nnursery-language of Lombardy, or the half-Indian, half-European jargon\nof Vancouver\u2019s Island; and wherever they are found, they help to furnish\ngroups of sound-words\u2014words which have not lost the traces of their\nfirst expressive origin, but still carry their direct significance\nplainly stamped upon them. In fact, the time has now come for a\nsubstantial basis to be laid for Generative Philology. A classified\ncollection of words with any strong claim to be self-expressive should\nbe brought together out of the thousand or so of recognized languages\nand dialects of the world. In such a Dictionary of Sound-Words, half the\ncases cited might very likely be worthless, but the collection would\nafford the practical means of expurgating itself; for it would show on a\nlarge scale what particular sounds have manifested their fitness to\nconvey particular ideas, by having been repeatedly chosen among\ndifferent races to convey them.\n\nAttempts to explain as far as may be the primary formation of speech, by\ntracing out in detail such processes as have been here described, are\nlikely to increase our knowledge by sure and steady steps wherever\nimagination does not get the better of sober comparison of facts. But\nthere is one side of this problem of the Origin of Language on which\nsuch studies have by no means an encouraging effect. Much of the popular\ninterest in such matters is centred in the question, whether the known\nlanguages of the world have their source in one or many prim\u00e6val\ntongues. On this subject the opinions of the philologists who have\ncompared the greatest number of languages are utterly at variance, nor\nhas any one brought forward a body of philological evidence strong and\ndirect enough to make anything beyond mere vague opinion justifiable.\nNow such processes as the growth of imitative or symbolic words form a\npart, be it small or large, of the Origin of Language, but they are by\nno means restricted to any particular place or period, and are indeed\nmore or less in activity now. Their operation on any two dialects of one\nlanguage will be to introduce in each a number of new and independent\nwords, and words even suspected of having been formed in this direct way\nbecome valueless as proof of genealogical connexion between the\nlanguages in which they are found. The test of such genealogical\nconnexion must, in fact, be generally narrowed to such words or\ngrammatical forms as have become so far conventional in sound and sense,\nthat we cannot suppose two tribes to have arrived at them independently,\nand therefore consider that both must have inherited them from a common\nsource. Thus the introduction of new sound-words tends to make it\npractically of less and less consequence to a language what its original\nstock of words at starting may have been; and the philologist\u2019s\nextension of his knowledge of such direct formations must compel him to\nstrip off more and more of any language, as being possibly of later\ngrowth, before he can set himself to argue upon such a residuum as may\nhave come by direct inheritance from times of prim\u00e6val speech.\n\nIn concluding this survey, some general considerations suggest\nthemselves as to the nature and first beginnings of language. In\nstudying the means of expression among men in stages of mental culture\nfar below our own, one of our first needs is to clear our minds of the\nkind of superstitious veneration with which articulate speech has so\ncommonly been treated, as though it were not merely the principal but\nthe sole means of uttering thought. We must cease to measure the\nhistorical importance of emotional exclamations, of gesture-signs, and\nof picture-writing, by their comparative insignificance in modern\ncivilized life, but must bring ourselves to associate the articulate\nwords of the dictionary in one group with cries and gestures and\npictures, as being all of them means of manifesting outwardly the inward\nworkings of the mind. Such an admission, it must be observed, is far\nfrom being a mere detail of scientific classification. It has really a\nmost important bearing on the problem of the Origin of Language. For as\nthe reasons are mostly dark to us, why particular words are currently\nused to express particular ideas, language has come to be looked upon as\na mystery, and either occult philosophical causes have been called in to\nexplain its phenomena, or else the endowment of man with the faculties\nof thought and utterance has been deemed insufficient, and a special\nrevelation has been demanded to put into his mouth the vocabulary of a\nparticular language. In the debate which has been carried on for ages\nover this much-vexed problem, the saying in the \u2018Kratylos\u2019 comes back to\nour minds again and again, where Sokrates describes the etymologists who\nrelease themselves from their difficulties as to the origin of words by\nsaying that the first words were divinely made, and therefore right,\njust as the tragedians, when they are in perplexity, fly to their\nmachinery and bring in the gods.[298] Now I think that those who soberly\ncontemplate the operation of cries, groans, laughs, and other emotional\nutterances, as to which some considerations have been here brought\nforward, will admit that, at least, our present crude understanding of\nthis kind of expression would lead us to class it among the natural\nactions of man\u2019s body and mind. Certainly, no one who understands\nanything of the gesture-language or of picture-writing would be\njustified in regarding either as due to occult causes, or to any\nsupernatural interference with the course of man\u2019s intellectual\ndevelopment. Their cause evidently lies in natural operations of the\nhuman mind, not such as were effective in some long-past condition of\nhumanity and have since disappeared, but in processes existing amongst\nus, which we can understand and even practise for ourselves. When we\nstudy the pictures and gestures with which savages and the deaf-and-dumb\nexpress their minds, we can mostly see at a glance the direct relation\nbetween the outward sign and the inward thought which it makes manifest.\nWe may see the idea of \u2018sleep\u2019 shown in gesture by the head with shut\neyes, leant heavily against the open hand; or the idea of \u2018running\u2019 by\nthe attitude of the runner, with chest forward, mouth half open, elbows\nand shoulders well back; or \u2018candle\u2019 by the straight forefinger held up,\nand as it were blown out; or \u2018salt\u2019 by the imitated act of sprinkling it\nwith thumb and finger. The figures of the child\u2019s picture-book, the\nsleeper and the runner, the candle and the salt-cellar, show their\npurport by the same sort of evident relation between thought and sign.\nWe so far understand the nature of these modes of utterance, that we are\nready ourselves to express thought after thought by such means, so that\nthose who see our signs shall perceive our meaning.\n\nWhen, however, encouraged by our ready success in making out the nature\nand action of these ruder methods, we turn to the higher art of speech,\nand ask how such and such words have come to express such and such\nthoughts, we find ourselves face to face with an immense problem, as yet\nbut in small part solved. The success of investigation has indeed been\nenough to encourage us to push vigorously forward in the research, but\nthe present explorations have not extended beyond corners and patches of\nan elsewhere unknown field. Still the results go far to warrant us in\nassociating expression by gestures and pictures with articulate language\nas to principles of original formation, much as men associate them in\nactual life by using gesture and word at once. Of course, articulate\nspeech, in its far more complex and elaborate development, has taken up\ndevices to which the more simple and rude means of communication offer\nnothing comparable. Still, language, so far as its constitution is\nunderstood, seems to have been developed like writing or music, like\nhunting or fire-making, by the exercise of purely human faculties in\npurely human ways. This state of things by no means belongs exclusively\nto rudimentary philological operations, such as the choosing expressive\nsounds to name corresponding ideas by. In the higher departments of\nspeech, where words already existing are turned to account to express\nnew meanings and shade off new distinctions, we find these ends attained\nby contrivances ranging from extreme dexterity down to utter clumsiness.\nFor a single instance, one great means of giving new meaning to old\nsound is metaphor, which transfers ideas from hearing to seeing, from\ntouching to thinking, from the concrete of one kind to the abstract of\nanother, and can thus make almost anything in the world help to describe\nor suggest anything else. What the German philosopher described as the\nrelation of a cow to a comet, that both have tails, is enough and more\nthan enough for the language-maker. It struck the Australians, when they\nsaw a European book, that it opened and shut like a mussel-shell, and\nthey began accordingly to call books \u2018mussels\u2019 (_m\u016by\u016bm_). The sight of a\nsteam engine may suggest a whole group of such transitions in our own\nlanguage; the steam passes along \u2018fifes\u2019 or \u2018trumpets,\u2019 that is, _pipes_\nor _tubes_, and enters by \u2018folding-doors\u2019 or _valves_, to push a\n\u2018pestle\u2019 or _piston_ up and down in a \u2018roller\u2019 or _cylinder_, while the\nlight pours from the furnace in \u2018staves\u2019 or \u2018poles,\u2019 that is, in _rays_\nor _beams_. The dictionaries are full of cases compared with which such\nas these are plain and straightforward. Indeed, the processes by which\nwords have really come into existence may often enough remind us of the\ngame of \u2018What is my thought like?\u2019 When one knows the answer, it is easy\nenough to see what _junketting_ and cathedral _canons_ have to do with\nreeds; Latin _juncus_ \u2018a reed,\u2019 Low Latin _juncata_, \u2018cheese made in a\nreed-basket,\u2019 Italian _giuncata_ \u2018cream cheese in a rush frail,\u2019 French\n_joncade_ and English _junket_, which are preparations of cream, and\nlastly _junketting_ parties where such delicacies are eaten; Greek\n\u03ba\u03ac\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7, \u2018reed, _cane_,\u2019 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd, \u2018measure, rule,\u2019 thence _canonicus_, \u2018a\nclerk under the ecclesiastical rule or canon.\u2019 But who could guess the\nhistory of these words, who did not happen to know these intermediate\nlinks?\n\nYet there is about this process of derivation a thoroughly human\nartificial character. When we know the whole facts of any case, we can\ngenerally understand it at once, and see that we might have done the\nsame ourselves had it come in our way. And the same thing is true of the\nprocesses of making sound-words detailed in these chapters. Such a view\nis, however, in no way inconsistent with the attempt to generalize upon\nthese processes, and to state them as phases of the development of\nlanguage among mankind. If certain men under certain circumstances\nproduce certain results, then we may at least expect that other men much\nresembling these and placed under roughly similar circumstances will\nproduce more or less like results; and this has been shown over and over\nagain in these pages to be what really happens. Now Wilhelm von\nHumboldt\u2019s view that language is an \u2018organism\u2019 has been considered a\ngreat step in philological speculation; and so far as it has led\nstudents to turn their minds to the search after general laws, no doubt\nit has been so. But it has also caused an increase of vague thinking and\ntalking, and thereby no small darkening of counsel. Had it been meant to\nsay that human thought, language, and action generally, are organic in\ntheir nature, and work under fixed laws, this would be a very different\nmatter; but this is distinctly not what is meant, and the very object of\ncalling language an organism is to keep it apart from mere human arts\nand contrivances. It was a hateful thing to Humboldt\u2019s mind to \u2018bring\ndown speech to a mere operation of the understanding.\u2019 \u2018Man,\u2019 he says,\n\u2018does not so much form language, as discern with a kind of joyous wonder\nits developments, coming forth as of themselves.\u2019 Yet, if the practical\nshifts by which words are shaped or applied to fit new meanings are not\ndevised by an operation of the understanding, we ought consistently to\ncarry the stratagems of the soldier in the field, or the contrivances of\nthe workman at his bench, back into the dark regions of instinct and\ninvoluntary action. That the actions of individual men combine to\nproduce results which may be set down in those general statements of\nfact which we call laws, may be stated once again as one of the main\npropositions of the Science of Culture. But the nature of a fact is not\naltered by its being classed in common with others of the same kind, and\na man is not less the intelligent inventor of a new word or a new\nmetaphor, because twenty other intelligent inventors elsewhere may have\nfallen on a similar expedient.\n\nThe theory that the original forms of language are to be referred to a\nlow or savage condition of culture among the remotely ancient human\nrace, stands in general consistency with the known facts of philology.\nThe causes which have produced language, so far as they are understood,\nare notable for that childlike simplicity of operation which befits the\ninfancy of human civilization. The ways in which sounds are in the first\ninstance chosen and arranged to express ideas, are practical expedients\nat the level of nursery philosophy. A child of five years old could\ncatch the meaning of imitative sounds, interjectional words, symbolism\nof sex or distance by contrast of vowels. Just as no one is likely to\nenter into the real nature of mythology who has not the keenest\nappreciation of nursery tales, so the spirit in which we guess riddles\nand play at children\u2019s games is needed to appreciate the lower phases of\nlanguage. Such a state of things agrees with the opinion that such\nrudimentary speech had its origin among men while in a childlike\nintellectual condition, and thus the self-expressive branch of savage\nlanguage affords valuable materials for the problem of primitive speech.\nIf we look back in imagination to an early period of human intercourse,\nwhere gesture and self-expressive utterance may have had a far greater\ncomparative importance than among ourselves, such a conception\nintroduces no new element into the problem, for a state of things more\nor less answering to this is described among certain low savage tribes.\nIf we turn from such self-expressive utterance, to that part of\narticulate language which carries its sense only by traditional and\nseemingly arbitrary custom, we shall find no contradiction to the\nhypothesis. Sound carrying direct meaning may be taken up as an element\nof language, keeping its first significance recognizable to nations yet\nunborn. But it may far more probably become by wear of sound and shift\nof sense an expressionless symbol, such as might have been chosen in\npure arbitrariness\u2014a philological process to which the vocabularies of\nsavage dialects bear full witness. In the course of the development of\nlanguage, such traditional words with merely an inherited meaning have\nin no small measure driven into the background the self-expressive\nwords, just as the Eastern figures 2, 3, 4, which are not\nself-expressive, have driven into the background the Roman numerals II,\nIII, IIII, which are\u2014this, again, is an operation which has its place in\nsavage as in cultivated speech. Moreover, to look closely at language as\na practical means of expressing thought, is to face evidence of no\nslight bearing on the history of civilization. We come back to the fact,\nso full of suggestion, that the languages of the world represent\nsubstantially the same intellectual art, the higher nations indeed\ngaining more expressive power than the lowest tribes, yet doing this not\nby introducing new and more effective central principles, but by mere\naddition and improvement in detail. The two great methods of naming\nthoughts and stating their relation to one another, viz., metaphor and\nsyntax, belong to the infancy of human expression, and are as thoroughly\nat home in the language of savages as of philosophers. If it be argued\nthat this similarity in principles of language is due to savage tribes\nhaving descended from higher culture, carrying down with them in their\nspeech the relics of their former excellence, the answer is that\nlinguistic expedients are actually worked out with as much originality,\nand more extensively if not more profitably, among savages than among\ncultured men. Take for example the Algonquin system of compounding\nwords, and the vast Esquimaux scheme of grammatical inflexion. Language\nbelongs in essential principle both to low grades and high of\ncivilization; to which should its origin be attributed? An answer may be\nhad by comparing the methods of language with the work it has to do.\nTake language all in all over the world, it is obvious that the\nprocesses by which words are made and adapted have far less to do with\nsystematic arrangement and scientific classification, than with mere\nrough and ready ingenuity and the great rule of thumb. Let any one whose\nvocation it is to realize philosophical or scientific conceptions and to\nexpress them in words, ask himself whether ordinary language is an\ninstrument planned for such purposes. Of course it is not. It is hard to\nsay which is the more striking, the want of scientific system in the\nexpression of thought by words, or the infinite cleverness of detail by\nwhich this imperfection is got over, so that he who has an idea does\nsomehow make shift to get it clearly in words before his own and other\nminds. The language by which a nation with highly developed art and\nknowledge and sentiment must express its thoughts on these subjects, is\nno apt machine devised for such special work, but an old barbaric engine\nadded to and altered, patched and tinkered into some sort of capability.\nEthnography reasonably accounts at once for the immense power and the\nmanifest weakness of language as a means of expressing modern educated\nthought, by treating it as an original product of low culture, gradually\nadapted by ages of evolution and selection, to answer more or less\nsufficiently the requirements of modern civilization.\n\nFootnote 283:\n\n  Mpongwe _punjina_; Basuto _foka_; Carib _phoub\u00e4e_; Arawac _app\u00fcd\u00fcn_\n  (ignem sufflare). Other cases are given by Wedgwood, \u2018Or. of Lang.\u2019 p.\n  83.\n\nFootnote 284:\n\n  See Wedgwood, \u2018Dic.\u2019 Introd. p. viii.\n\nFootnote 285:\n\n  See Wedgwood, Dic., s.v. \u2018mum,\u2019 &c.\n\nFootnote 286:\n\n  Bates, \u2018Naturalist on the Amazons,\u2019 2nd ed., p. 404; Markham in \u2018Tr.\n  Eth. Soc.,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 143.\n\nFootnote 287:\n\n  \u2018Avesta,\u2019 Farg. xviii. 34-5.\n\nFootnote 288:\n\n  Wedgwood, Dic., s.v. \u2018pigeon;\u2019 Diez, \u2018Etym. W\u00f6rterb.,\u2019 s.v.\n  \u2018piccione.\u2019\n\nFootnote 289:\n\n  Bopp, \u2018Gloss. Sanscr.,\u2019 s.v. \u2018go.\u2019 See Pott, \u2018Wurzel-W\u00f6rterb. der\n  Indo-Germ. Spr.,\u2019 s.v. \u2018gu,\u2019 \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 p. 227.\n\nFootnote 290:\n\n  Pott, \u2018Doppelung (Reduplication, Gemination) als eines der wichtigsten\n  Bildungsmittel der Sprache,\u2019 1862. Frequent use has been here made of\n  this work.\n\nFootnote 291:\n\n  For authorities see especially Pott, \u2018Doppelung,\u2019 p. 30, 47-49; W. v.\n  Humboldt, \u2018Kawi-Spr.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 36; Max M\u00fcller in Bunsen, \u2018Philos.\n  of Univ. Hist.\u2019 vol. i. p. 329; Latham, \u2018Comp. Phil.\u2019 p. 200; and the\n  grammars and dictionaries of the particular languages. The Guarani and\n  Carib on authority of D\u2019Orbigny, \u2018L\u2019Homme Am\u00e9ricain,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 268;\n  Dhimal of Hodgson, \u2018Abor. of India,\u2019 p. 69, 79, 115; Colville Ind. of\n  Wilson in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 331; Botocudo of Martius,\n  \u2018Gloss. Brasil.\u2019\n\nFootnote 292:\n\n  Also Old High German _diz_ and _daz_.\n\nFootnote 293:\n\n  Max M\u00fcller, l.c.\n\nFootnote 294:\n\n  J. C. E. Buschmann, \u2018Ueber den Naturlaut,\u2019 Berlin, 1853; and in \u2018Abh.\n  der K. Akad. d. Wissensch,\u2019 1852. An English trans. in \u2018Proc.\n  Philological Society,\u2019 vol. vi. See De Brosses, \u2018Form. des L.,\u2019 vol.\n  i. p. 211.\n\nFootnote 295:\n\n  One family of languages, the Athapascan, contains both _app\u00e1_ and\n  _mama_ as terms for \u2018father,\u2019 in the Tahkali and Tlatskanai.\n\nFootnote 296:\n\n  See Pott, \u2018Indo-Ger. Wurzelw\u00f6rterb.\u2019 s.v. \u2018p\u00e2\u2019; B\u00f6htlingk and Roth,\n  \u2018Sanskrit-W\u00f6rterb.\u2019 s.v. _m\u00e2tar_; Pictet, \u2018Origines Indo-Europ.,\u2019 part\n  ii. p. 349; Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Lectures,\u2019 2nd series, p. 212.\n\nFootnote 297:\n\n  Facciolati, \u2018Lexicon;\u2019 Varro, ap. Nonn., ii. 97.\n\nFootnote 298:\n\n  Plato, \u2018Cratylus\u2019, 90.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII.\n                          THE ART OF COUNTING.\n\n    Ideas of Number derived from experience\u2014State of Arithmetic among\n    uncivilized races\u2014Small extent of Numeral-words among low\n    tribes\u2014Counting by fingers and toes\u2014Hand-numerals show derivation of\n    Verbal reckoning from Gesture-counting\u2014Etymology of\n    Numerals\u2014Quinary, Decimal, and Vigesimal notations of the world\n    derived from counting on fingers and toes\u2014Adoption of foreign\n    Numeral-words\u2014Evidence of development of Arithmetic from a low\n    original level of Culture.\n\n\nMr. J. S. Mill, in his \u2018System of Logic,\u2019 takes occasion to examine the\nfoundations of the art of arithmetic. Against Dr. Whewell, who had\nmaintained that such propositions as that two and three make five are\n\u2018necessary truths,\u2019 containing in them an element of certainty beyond\nthat which mere experience can give, Mr. Mill asserts that \u2018two and one\nare equal to three\u2019 expresses merely \u2018a truth known to us by early and\nconstant experience: an inductive truth; and such truths are the\nfoundation of the science of Number. The fundamental truths of that\nscience all rest on the evidence of sense; they are proved by showing to\nour eyes and our fingers that any given number of objects, ten balls for\nexample, may by separation and re-arrangement exhibit to our senses all\nthe different sets of numbers the sum of which is equal to ten. All the\nimproved methods of teaching arithmetic to children proceed on a\nknowledge of this fact. All who wish to carry the child\u2019s mind along\nwith them in learning arithmetic; all who wish to teach numbers, and not\nmere ciphers\u2014now teach it through the evidence of the senses, in the\nmanner we have described.\u2019 Mr. Mill\u2019s argument is taken from the mental\nconditions of people among whom there exists a highly advanced\narithmetic. The subject is also one to be advantageously studied from\nthe ethnographer\u2019s point of view. The examination of the methods of\nnumeration in use among the lower races not only fully bears out Mr.\nMill\u2019s view, that our knowledge of the relations of numbers is based on\nactual experiment, but it enables us to trace the art of counting to its\nsource, and to ascertain by what steps it arose in the world among\nparticular races, and probably among all mankind.\n\nIn our advanced system of numeration, no limit is known either to\nlargeness or smallness. The philosopher cannot conceive the formation of\nany quantity so large or of any atom so small but the arithmetician can\nkeep pace with him, and can define it in a simple combination of written\nsigns. But as we go downwards in the scale of culture, we find that even\nwhere the current language has terms for hundreds and thousands, there\nis less and less power of forming a distinct notion of large numbers,\nthe reckoner is sooner driven to his fingers, and there increases among\nthe most intelligent that numerical indefiniteness that we notice among\nchildren\u2014if there were not a thousand people in the street there were\ncertainly a hundred, at any rate there were twenty. Strength in\narithmetic does not, it is true, vary regularly with the level of\ngeneral culture. Some savage or barbaric peoples are exceptionally\nskilled in numeration. The Tonga Islanders really have native numerals\nup to 100,000. Not content even with this, the French explorer\nLabillardi\u00e8re pressed them farther and obtained numerals up to 1000\nbillions, which were duly printed, but proved on later examination to be\npartly nonsense-words and partly indelicate expressions,[299] so that\nthe supposed series of high numerals forms at once a little vocabulary\nof Tongan indecency, and a warning as to the probable results of taking\ndown unchecked answers from question-worried savages. In West Africa, a\nlively and continual habit of bargaining has developed a great power of\narithmetic, and little children already do feats of computation with\ntheir heaps of cowries. Among the Yorubas of Abeokuta, to say \u2018you don\u2019t\nknow nine times nine\u2019 is actually an insulting way of saying \u2018you are a\ndunce.\u2019[300] This is an extraordinary proverb, when we compare it with\nthe standard which our corresponding European sayings set for the limits\nof stupidity: the German says, \u2018he can scarce count five\u2019; the Spaniard,\n\u2018I will tell you how many make five\u2019 (cuantos son cinco); and we have\nthe same saw in England:\u2014\n\n                            \u2018... as sure as I\u2019m alive,\n                    And knows how many beans make five.\u2019\n\nA Siamese law-court will not take the evidence of a witness who cannot\ncount or reckon figures up to ten; a rule which reminds us of the\nancient custom of Shrewsbury, where a person was deemed of age when he\nknew how to count up to twelve pence.[301]\n\nAmong the lowest living men, the savages of the South American forests\nand the deserts of Australia, 5 is actually found to be a number which\nthe languages of some tribes do not know by a special word. Not only\nhave travellers failed to get from them names for numbers above 2, 3, or\n4, but the opinion that these are the real limits of their numeral\nseries is strengthened by the use of their highest known number as an\nindefinite term for a great many. Spix and Martius say of the low tribes\nof Brazil, \u2018They count commonly by their finger joints, so up to three\nonly. Any larger number they express by the word \u201cmany.\u201d\u2019[302] In a Puri\nvocabulary the numerals are given as 1. _omi_; 2. _curiri_; 3. _prica_,\n\u2018many\u2019: in a Botocudo vocabulary, 1. _mokenam_; 2. _uruh\u00fa_, \u2018many.\u2019 The\nnumeration of the Tasmanians is, according to Jorgensen, 1. _parmery_;\n2. _calabawa_; more than 2, _cardia_; as Backhouse puts it, they count\n\u2018one, two, plenty;\u2019 but an observer who had specially good\nopportunities, Dr. Milligan, gives their numerals up to 5, _puggana_,\nwhich we shall recur to.[303] Mr. Oldfield (writing especially of\nWestern tribes) says, \u2018The New Hollanders have no names for numbers\nbeyond _two_. The Watchandie scale of notation is _co-ote-on_ (one),\n_u-tau-ra_ (two), _bool-tha_ (many), and _bool-tha-bat_ (very many). If\nabsolutely required to express the numbers three or four, they say\n_u-tar-ra coo-te-oo_ to indicate the former number, and _u-tar-ra\nu-tar-ra_ to denote the latter.\u2019 That is to say, their names for one,\ntwo, three, and four, are equivalent to \u2018one,\u2019 \u2018two,\u2019 \u2018two-one,\u2019\n\u2018two-two.\u2019 Dr. Lang\u2019s numerals from Queensland are just the same in\nprinciple, though the words are different: 1. _ganar_; 2. _burla_; 3.\n_burla-ganar_, \u2018two-one\u2019; 4. _burla-burla_, \u2018two-two\u2019; _korumba_, \u2018more\nthan four, much, great.\u2019 The Kamilaroi dialect, though with the same 2\nas the last, improves upon it by having an independent 3, and with the\naid of this it reckons as far as 6: 1. _mal_; 2. _bularr_; 3. _guliba_;\n4. _bularr-bularr_, \u2018two-two\u2019; 5. _bulaguliba_, \u2018two-three\u2019; 6.\n_guliba-guliba_ \u2018three-three.\u2019 These Australian examples are at least\nevidence of a very scanty as well as clumsy numeral system among certain\ntribes.[304] Yet here again higher forms will have to be noticed, which\nin one district at least carry the native numerals up to 15 or 20.\n\nIt is not to be supposed, because a savage tribe has no current words\nfor numbers above 3 or 5 or so, that therefore they cannot count beyond\nthis. It appears that they can and do count considerably farther, but it\nis by falling back on a lower and ruder method of expression than\nspeech\u2014the gesture-language. The place in intellectual development held\nby the art of counting on one\u2019s fingers, is well marked in the\ndescription which Massieu, the Abb\u00e9 Sicard\u2019s deaf-and-dumb pupil, gives\nof his notion of numbers in his comparatively untaught childhood: \u2018I\nknew the numbers before my instruction, my fingers had taught me them. I\ndid not know the ciphers; I counted on my fingers, and when the number\npassed 10 I made notches on a bit of wood.\u2019[305] It is thus that all\nsavage tribes have been taught arithmetic by their fingers. Mr.\nOldfield, after giving the account just quoted of the capability of the\nWatchandie language to reach 4 by numerals, goes on to describe the\nmeans by which the tribe contrive to deal with a harder problem in\nnumeration.\n\n\u2018I once wished to ascertain the exact number of natives who had been\nslain on a certain occasion. The individual of whom I made the enquiry,\nbegan to think over the names ... assigning one of his fingers to each,\nand it was not until after many failures, and consequent fresh starts,\nthat he was able to express so high a number, which he at length did by\nholding up his hand three times, thus giving me to understand that\nfifteen was the answer to this most difficult arithmetical question.\u2019 Of\nthe aborigines of Victoria, Mr. Stanbridge says: \u2018They have no name for\nnumerals above two, but by repetition they count to five; they also\nrecord the days of the moon by means of the fingers, the bones and\njoints of the arms and the head.\u2019[306] The Bororos of Brazil reckon: 1.\n_couai_; 2. _macouai_; 3. _ouai_; and then go on counting on their\nfingers, repeating this _ouai_.[307] Of course it no more follows among\nsavages than among ourselves that, because a man counts on his fingers,\nhis language must be wanting in words to express the number he wishes to\nreckon. For example it was noticed that when natives of Kamchatka were\nset to count, they would reckon all their fingers, and then all their\ntoes, so getting up to 20, and then would ask, \u2018What are we to do next?\u2019\nYet it was found on examination that numbers up to 100 existed in their\nlanguage.[308] Travellers notice the use of finger-counting among tribes\nwho can, if they choose, speak the number, and who either silently count\nit upon their fingers, or very usually accompany the word with the\naction; nor indeed are either of these modes at all unfamiliar in modern\nEurope. Let Father Gumilla, one of the early Jesuit missionaries in\nSouth America, describe for us the relation of gesture to speech in\ncounting, and at the same time bring to our minds very remarkable\nexamples (to be paralleled elsewhere) of the action of consensus,\nwhereby conventional rules become fixed among societies of men, even in\nso simple an art as that of counting on one\u2019s fingers. \u2018Nobody among\nourselves,\u2019 he remarks, \u2018except incidentally, would say for instance\n\u201cone,\u201d \u201ctwo,\u201d &c., and give the number on his fingers as well, by\ntouching them with the other hand. Exactly the contrary happens among\nIndians. They say, for instance, \u201cgive me one pair of scissors,\u201d and\nforthwith they raise one finger; \u201cgive me two,\u201d and at once they raise\ntwo, and so on. They would never say \u201cfive\u201d without showing a hand,\nnever \u201cten\u201d without holding out both, never \u201ctwenty\u201d without adding up\nthe fingers, placed opposite to the toes. Moreover, the mode of showing\nthe numbers with the fingers differs in each nation. To avoid prolixity,\nI give as an example the number \u201cthree.\u201d The Otomacs to say \u201cthree\u201d\nunite the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, keeping the others down.\nThe Tamanacs show the little finger, the ring finger, and the middle\nfinger, and close the other two. The Maipures, lastly, raise the fore,\nmiddle, and ring fingers, keeping the other two hidden.\u2019[309] Throughout\nthe world, the general relation between finger-counting and\nword-counting may be stated as follows. For readiness and for ease and\napprehension of numbers, a palpable arithmetic, such as is worked on\nfinger-joints or fingers,[310] or heaps of pebbles or beans, or the more\nartificial contrivances of the rosary or the abacus, has so great an\nadvantage over reckoning in words as almost necessarily to precede it.\nThus not only do we find finger-counting among savages and uneducated\nmen, carrying on a part of their mental operations where language is\nonly partly able to follow it, but it also retains a place and an\nundoubted use among the most cultured nations, as a preparation for and\nmeans of acquiring higher arithmetical methods.\n\nNow there exists valid evidence to prove that a child learning to count\nupon its fingers does in a way reproduce a process of the mental history\nof the human race; that in fact men counted upon their fingers before\nthey found words for the numbers they thus expressed; that in this\ndepartment of culture, Word-language not only followed Gesture-language,\nbut actually grew out of it. The evidence in question is principally\nthat of language itself, which shows that, among many and distant\ntribes, men wanting to express 5 in words called it simply by their name\nfor the _hand_ which they held up to denote it, that in like manner they\nsaid _two hands_ or _half a man_ to denote 10, that the word _foot_\ncarried on the reckoning up to 15, and to 20, which they described in\nwords as in gesture by the _hands and feet_ together, or as _one man_,\nand that lastly, by various expressions referring directly to the\ngestures of counting on the fingers and toes, they gave names to these\nand intermediate numerals. As a definite term is wanted to describe\nsignificant numerals of this class, it may be convenient to call them\n\u2018hand-numerals\u2019 or \u2018digit-numerals.\u2019 A selection of typical instances\nwill serve to make it probable that this ingenious device was not, at\nany rate generally, copied from one tribe by another or inherited from a\ncommon source, but that its working out with original character and\ncuriously varying detail displays the recurrence of a similar but\nindependent process of mental development among various races of man.\n\nFather Gilij, describing the arithmetic of the Tamanacs on the Orinoco,\ngives their numerals up to 4: when they come to 5, they express it by\nthe word _amgnait\u00f2ne_, which being translated means \u2018a whole hand;\u2019 6 is\nexpressed by a term which translates the proper gesture into words,\n_itacon\u00f2 amgnapon\u00e0 tevinitpe_ \u2018one of the other hand,\u2019 and so on up to\n9. Coming to 10, they give it in words as _amgna acepon\u00e0re_ \u2018both\nhands.\u2019 To denote 11 they stretch out both the hands, and adding the\nfoot they say _puittapon\u00e0 tevinitpe_ \u2018one to the foot,\u2019 and thus up to\n15, which is _iptait\u00f2ne_ \u2018a whole foot.\u2019 Next follows 16, \u2018one to the\nother foot,\u2019 and so on to 20, _tevin it\u00f2to_, \u2018one Indian;\u2019 21, _itacon\u00f2\nit\u00f2to jamgn\u00e0r bon\u00e0 tevinitpe_ \u2018one to the hands of the other Indian;\u2019\n40, _acciach\u00e8 it\u00f2to_, \u2018two Indians;\u2019 thence on to 60, 80, 100, \u2018three,\nfour, five Indians,\u2019 and beyond if needful. South America is remarkably\nrich in such evidence of an early condition of finger-counting recorded\nin spoken language. Among its many other languages which have\nrecognizable digit-numerals, the Cayriri, Tupi, Abipone, and Carib rival\nthe Tamanac in their systematic way of working out \u2018hand,\u2019 \u2018hands,\u2019\n\u2018foot,\u2019 \u2018feet,\u2019 &c. Others show slighter traces of the same process,\nwhere, for instance, the numerals 5 or 10 are found to be connected with\nwords for \u2018hand,\u2019 &c., as when the Omagua uses _pua_, \u2018hand,\u2019 for 5, and\nreduplicates this into _upapua_ for 10. In some South American languages\na man is reckoned by fingers and toes up to 20, while in contrast to\nthis, there are two languages which display a miserably low mental\nstate, the man counting only one hand, thus stopping short at 5; the\nJuri _ghomen apa_ \u2018one man,\u2019 stands for 5; the Cayriri _ibich\u00f3_ is used\nto mean both \u2018person\u2019 and 5. Digit-numerals are not confined to tribes\nstanding, like these, low or high within the limits of savagery. The\nMuyscas of Bogota were among the more civilized native races of America,\nranking with the Peruvians in their culture, yet the same method of\nformation which appears in the language of the rude Tamanacs is to be\ntraced in that of the Muyscas, who, when they came to 11, 12, 13,\ncounted _quihicha ata_, _bosa_, _mica_, _i.e._, \u2018foot one, two,\nthree.\u2019[311] To turn to North America, Cranz, the Moravian missionary,\nthus describes about a century ago the numeration of the Greenlanders.\n\u2018Their numerals,\u2019 he says, \u2018go not far, and with them the proverb holds\nthat they can scarce count five, for they reckon by the five fingers and\nthen get the help of the toes on their feet, and so with labour bring\nout twenty,\u2019 The modern Greenland grammar gives the numerals much as\nCranz does, but more fully. The word for 5 is _tatdlimat_, which there\nis some ground for supposing to have once meant \u2018hand;\u2019 6 is\n_arfinek-attausek_, \u2018on the other hand one,\u2019 or more shortly\n_arfinigdlit_, \u2018those which have on the other hand;\u2019 7 is\n_arfinek-mardluk_, \u2018on the other hand two;\u2019 13 is _arkanck-pingasut_,\n\u2018on the first foot three;\u2019 18 is _arfersanek-pingasut_, \u2018on the other\nfoot three;\u2019 when they reach 20, they can say _inuk n\u00e2vdlugo_, \u2018a man\nended,\u2019 or _in\u00fbp avatai n\u00e2vdlugit_,\u2019 the man\u2019s outer members ended;\u2019 in\nthis way by counting several men they reach higher numbers, thus\nexpressing, for example, 53 as _in\u00fbp pinga-jugs\u00e2ne arkanek-pingasut_,\n\u2018on the third man on the first foot three.\u2019[312] If we pass from the\nrude Greenlanders to the comparatively civilized Aztecs, we shall find\non the Northern as on the Southern continent traces of early\nfinger-numeration surviving among higher races. The Mexican names for\nthe first four numerals are as obscure in etymology as our own. But when\nwe come to 5 we find this expressed by _macuilli_; and as _ma_ (ma-itl)\nmeans \u2018hand,\u2019 and _cuiloa_ \u2018to paint or depict,\u2019 it is likely that the\nword for 5 may have meant something like \u2018hand-depicting.\u2019 In 10,\n_matlactli_, the word _ma_, \u2018hand,\u2019 appears again, while _tlactli_ means\nhalf, and is represented in the Mexico picture-writings by the figure of\nhalf a man from the waist upward; thus it appears that the Aztec 10\nmeans the \u2018hand-half\u2019 of a man, just as among the Towka Indians of South\nAmerica 10 is expressed as \u2018half a man,\u2019 a whole man being 20. When the\nAztecs reach 20 they call it _cempoalli_, \u2018one counting,\u2019 with evidently\nthe same meaning as elsewhere, one whole man, fingers and toes.\n\nAmong races of the lower culture elsewhere, similar facts are to be\nobserved. The Tasmanian language again shows the man stopping short\nat the reckoning of himself when he has held up one hand and counted\nits fingers; this appears by Milligan\u2019s list before mentioned, which\nends with _puggana_, \u2018man,\u2019 standing for 5. Some of the West\nAustralian tribes have done much better than this, using their word\nfor \u2018hand,\u2019 _marh-ra_; _marh-jin-bang-ga_, \u2018half the hands,\u2019 is 5;\n_marh-jin-bang-ga-gudjir-gyn_, \u2018half the hands and one,\u2019 is 6, and\nso on; _marh-jin-belli-belli-gudjir-jina-bang-ga_, \u2018the hand on\neither side and half the feet,\u2019 is 15.[313] As an example from the\nMelanesian languages the Mar\u00e9 will serve; it reckons 10 as _ome re\nrue tubenine_, apparently \u2018the two sides\u2019 (i.e. both hands), 20 as\n_sa re ngome_,\u2019one man,\u2019 &c.; thus in John v. 5 \u2018which had an\ninfirmity thirty and eight years,\u2019 the numeral 38 is expressed by\nthe phrase, \u2018one man and both sides five and three.\u2019[314] In the\nMalayo-Polynesian languages, the typical word for 5 is _lima_ or\n_rima_, \u2018hand,\u2019 and the connexion is not lost by the phonetic\nvariations among different branches of this family of languages, as\nin Malagasy _dimy_, Marquesan _fima_, Tongan _nima_, but while\n_lima_ and its varieties mean 5 in almost all Malayo-Polynesian\ndialects, its meaning of \u2018hand\u2019 is confined to a much narrower\ndistrict, showing that the word became more permanent by passing\ninto the condition of a traditional numeral. In languages of the\nMalayo-Polynesian family, it is usually found that 6, &c., are\ncarried on with words whose etymology is no longer obvious, but the\nforms _lima-sa_, _lima-zua_ \u2018hand-one,\u2019 \u2018hand-two,\u2019 have been found\ndoing duty for 6 and 7.[315] In West Africa, K\u00f6lle\u2019s account of the\nVei language gives a case in point. These negroes are so dependent\non their fingers that some can hardly count without, and their toes\nare convenient as the calculator squats on the ground. The Vei\npeople and many other African tribes, when counting, first count the\nfingers of their left hand, beginning, be it remembered, from the\nlittle one, then in the same manner those of the right hand, and\nafterwards the toes. The Vei numeral for 20, _m\u014d b\u00e1nde_, means\nobviously \u2018a person (mo) is finished (bande),\u2019 and similarly 40, 60,\n80, &c. \u2018two men, three men, four men, &c., are finished,\u2019 It is an\ninteresting point that the negroes who used these phrases had lost\ntheir original descriptive sense\u2014the words have become mere numerals\nto them.[316] Lastly, for bringing before our minds a picture of a\nman counting upon his fingers, and being struck by the idea that if\nhe describes his gestures in words, these words may become an actual\nname for the number, perhaps no language in the world surpasses the\nZulu. The Zulu counting on his fingers begins in general with the\nlittle finger of his left hand. When he comes to 5, this he may call\n_edesanta_ \u2018finish hand;\u2019 then he goes on to the thumb of the right\nhand, and so the word _tatisitupa_ \u2018taking the thumb\u2019 becomes a\nnumeral for 6. Then the verb _komba_ \u2018to point,\u2019 indicating the\nforefinger, or \u2018pointer,\u2019 makes the next numeral, 7. Thus, answering\nthe question \u2018How much did your master give you?\u2019 a Zulu would say\n\u2018U _kombile_\u2019 \u2018He pointed with his forefinger,\u2019 _i.e._, \u2018He gave me\nseven,\u2019 and this curious way of using the numeral verb is shown in\nsuch an example as \u2018amahasi _akombile_\u2019 \u2018the horses have pointed,\u2019\n_i.e._, \u2018there were seven of them.\u2019 In like manner, _Kijangalobili_\n\u2018keep back two fingers,\u2019 _i.e._ 8, and _Kijangalolunje_ \u2018keep back\none finger,\u2019 _i.e._ 9, lead on to _kumi_, 10; at the completion of\neach ten the two hands with open fingers are clapped together.[317]\n\nThe theory that man\u2019s primitive mode of counting was palpable reckoning\non his hands, and the proof that many numerals in present use are\nactually derived from such a state of things, is a great step towards\ndiscovering the origin of numerals in general. Can we go farther, and\nstate broadly the mental process by which savage men, having no numerals\nas yet in their language, came to invent them? What was the origin of\nnumerals not named with reference to hands and feet, and especially of\nthe numerals below five, to which such a derivation is hardly\nappropriate? The subject is a peculiarly difficult one. Yet as to\nprinciple it is not altogether obscure, for some evidence is forthcoming\nas to the actual formation of new numeral words, these being made by\nsimply pressing into the service names of objects or actions in some way\nappropriate to the purpose.\n\nPeople possessing full sets of inherited numerals in their own languages\nhave nevertheless sometimes found it convenient to invent new ones. Thus\nthe scholars of India, ages ago, selected a set of words from a memoria\ntechnica in order to record dates and numbers. These words they chose\nfor reasons which are still in great measure evident; thus \u2018moon\u2019 or\n\u2018earth\u2019 expressed 1, there being but one of each; 2 might be called\n\u2018eye,\u2019 \u2018wing,\u2019 \u2018arm,\u2019 \u2018jaw,\u2019 as going in pairs; for 3 they said \u2018Rama,\u2019\n\u2018fire,\u2019 or \u2018quality,\u2019 there being considered to be three Ramas, three\nkinds of fire, three qualities (guna); for 4 were used \u2018veda\u2019, \u2018age,\u2019 or\n\u2018ocean,\u2019 there being four of each recognized; \u2018season\u2019 for 6, because\nthey reckoned six seasons; \u2018sage\u2019 or \u2018vowel\u2019 for 7, from the seven sages\nand the seven vowels; and so on with higher numbers, \u2018sun\u2019 for 12,\nbecause of his twelve annual denominations, or \u2018zodiac\u2019 from its twelve\nsigns, and \u2018nail\u2019 for 20, a word incidentally bringing in a finger\nnotation. As Sanskrit is very rich in synonyms, and as even the numerals\nthemselves might be used, it becomes very easy to draw up phrases or\nnonsense-verses to record series of numbers by this system of artificial\nmemory. The following is a Hindu astronomical formula, a list of numbers\nreferring to the stars of the lunar constellations. Each word stands as\nthe mnemonic equivalent of the number placed over it in the English\ntranslation. The general principle on which the words are chosen to\ndenote the numbers is evident without further explanation:\u2014\n\n                 \u2018Vahni tri rtvishu gunendu krit\u00e2gnibh\u00fbta\n                 B\u00e2n\u00e2svinetra \u00e7ara bh\u00fbku yugabdhi r\u00e2m\u00e2h\n                 Rudr\u00e2bdhir\u00e2magunaveda\u00e7at\u00e2 dviyugma\n                 Dant\u00e2 budhairabhihit\u00e2h krama\u00e7o bhat\u00e2r\u00e2h.\u2019\n\n              3     3       6      5       3      1\n            \u2018Fire, three, season, arrow, quality, moon,\n\n                   4            3       5\n             four-side of die, fire, element,\n\n               5      2     2     5      1      1     4     4      3\n              Arrow, Asvin, eye, arrow, earth, earth, age, ocean, Rama,\n\n      11      4     3      3       4      100    2      2\n    Rudra, ocean, Rama, quality, Veda, hundred, two, couple,\n\n      32\n    Teeth: by the wise have been set forth in order the mighty\n       lords.\u2019[318]\n\nIt occurred to Wilhelm von Humboldt, in studying this curious system of\nnumeration, that he had before his eyes the evidence of a process very\nlike that which actually produced the regular numeral words denoting\n_one_, _two_, _three_, &c., in the various languages of the world. The\nfollowing passage in which, more than sixty years ago, he set forth this\nview, seems to me to contain a nearly perfect key to the theory of\nnumeral words. \u2018If we take into consideration the origin of actual\nnumerals, the process of their formation appears evidently to have been\nthe same as that here described. The latter is nothing else than a wider\nextension of the former. For when 5 is expressed, as in several\nlanguages of the Malay family, by \u201chand\u201d (_lima_), this is precisely the\nsame thing as when in the description of numbers by words, 2 is denoted\nby \u201cwing.\u201d Indisputably there lie at the root of all numerals such\nmetaphors as these, though they cannot always be now traced. But people\nseem early to have felt that the multiplicity of such signs for the same\nnumber was superfluous, too clumsy, and leading to misunderstandings.\u2019\nTherefore, he goes on to argue, synonyms of numerals are very rare. And\nto nations with a deep sense of language, the feeling must soon have\nbeen present, though perhaps without rising to distinct consciousness,\nthat recollections of the original etymology and descriptive meaning of\nnumerals had best be allowed to disappear, so as to leave the numerals\nthemselves to become mere conventional terms.\n\nThe most instructive evidence I have found bearing on the formation of\nnumerals, other than digit-numerals, among the lower races, appears in\nthe use on both sides of the globe of what may be called numeral-names\nfor children. In Australia a well-marked case occurs. With all the\npoverty of the aboriginal languages in numerals, 3 being commonly used\nas meaning \u2018several or many,\u2019 the natives in the Adelaide district have\nfor a particular purpose gone far beyond this narrow limit, and possess\nwhat is to all intents a special numeral system, extending perhaps to 9.\nThey give fixed names to their children in order of age, which are set\ndown as follows by Mr. Eyre: 1. Kertameru; 2. Warritya; 3. Kudnutya; 4.\nMonaitya; 5. Milaitya; 6. Marrutya; 7. Wangutya; 8. Ngarlaitya; 9.\nPouarna. These are the male names, from which the female differ in\ntermination. They are given at birth, more distinctive appellations\nbeing soon afterwards chosen.[319] A similar habit makes its appearance\namong the Malays, who in some districts are reported to use a series of\nseven names in order of age, beginning with 1. _Sulung_ (\u2018eldest\u2019); 2.\n_Awang_ (\u2018friend, companion\u2019), and ending with _Kechil_ (\u2018little one\u2019),\nor _Bongsu_ (\u2018youngest\u2019). These are for sons; daughters have _Meh_\nprefixed, and nicknames have to be used for practical distinction.[320]\nIn Madagascar, the Malay connexion manifests itself in the appearance of\na similar set of appellations given to children in lieu of proper names,\nwhich are, however, often substituted in after years. Males; _Lahimatoa_\n(\u2018first male\u2019), _Lah-ivo_ (\u2018intermediate male\u2019); _Ra-fara-lahy_ (\u2018last\nborn male\u2019). Females; _Ramatoa_ (\u2018eldest female\u2019), _Ra-ivo_\n(\u2018intermediate\u2019), _Ra-fara-vavy_ (\u2018last born female\u2019).[321] The system\nexists in North America. There have been found in use among the Dacotas\nthe following two series of names for sons and daughters in order of\nbirth. Eldest son, _Chask\u00e9_; second, _Haparm_; third, _Ha-pe-dah_;\nfourth, _Chatun_; fifth _Harka_. Eldest daughter, _Wenonah_; second,\n_Harpen_; third, _Harpstenah_; fourth, _Waska_; fifth, _We-harka._ These\nmere numeral appellations they retain through childhood, till their\nrelations or friends find occasion to replace them by bestowing some\nmore distinctive personal name.[322] Africa affords further\nexamples.[323]\n\nAs to numerals in the ordinary sense, Polynesia shows remarkable cases\nof new formation. Besides the well-known system of numeral words\nprevalent in Polynesia, exceptional terms have from time to time grown\nup. Thus the habit of altering words which sounded too nearly like a\nking\u2019s name, has led the Tahitians on the accession of new chiefs to\nmake several new words for numbers. Thus, wanting a new term for 2\ninstead of the ordinary _rua_, they for obvious reasons took up the word\n_piti_, \u2018together,\u2019 and made it a numeral, while to get a new word for 5\ninstead of _rima_, \u2018hand,\u2019 which had to be discontinued, they\nsubstituted _pae_, \u2018part, division,\u2019 meaning probably division of the\ntwo hands. Such words as these, introduced in Polynesia for ceremonial\nreasons, are expected to be dropped again and the old ones replaced,\nwhen the reason for their temporary exclusion ceases, yet the new 2 and\n5, _piti_ and _pae_, became so positively the proper numerals of the\nlanguage, that they stand instead of _rua_ and _rima_ in the Tahitian\ntranslation of the Gospel of St. John made at the time. Again, various\nspecial habits of counting in the South Sea Islands have had their\neffect on language. The Marquesans, counting fish or fruit by one in\neach hand, have come to use a system of counting by pairs instead of by\nunits. They start with _tauna_, \u2018a pair,\u2019 which thus becomes a numeral\nequivalent to 2; then they count onward by pairs, so that when they talk\nof _takau_ or 10, they really mean 10 pair or 20. For bread-fruit, as\nthey are accustomed to tie them up in knots of four, they begin with the\nword _pona_, \u2018knot,\u2019 which thus becomes a real numeral for 4, and here\nagain they go on counting by knots, so that when they say _takau_ or 10,\nthey mean 10 knots or 40. The philological mystification thus caused in\nPolynesian vocabularies is extraordinary; in Tahitian, &c., _rau_ and\n_mano_, properly meaning 100 and 1,000, have come to signify 200 and\n2,000, while in Hawaii a second doubling in their sense makes them\nequivalent to 400 and 4,000. Moreover, it seems possible to trace the\ntransfer of suitable names of objects still farther in Polynesia in the\nTongan and Maori word _tekau_, 10, which seems to have been a word for\n\u2018parcel\u2019 or \u2018bunch,\u2019 used in counting yams and fish, as also in\n_tefuhi_, 100, derived from _fuhi_, \u2018sheaf or bundle.\u2019[324]\n\nIn Africa, also, special numeral formations are to be noticed. In the\nYoruba language, 40 is called _ogodzi_, \u2018a string,\u2019 because cowries are\nstrung by forties, and 200 is _igba_, \u2018a heap,\u2019 meaning again a heap of\ncowries. Among the Dahomans in like manner, 40 cowries make a _kade_ or\n\u2018string,\u2019 50 strings make one _afo_ or \u2018head;\u2019 these words becoming\nnumerals for 40 and 2,000. When the king of Dahome attacked Abeokuta, it\nis on record that he was repulsed with the heavy loss of \u2018two heads,\ntwenty strings, and twenty cowries\u2019 of men, that is to say, 4,820.[325]\n\nAmong cultured nations, whose languages are most tightly bound to the\nconventional and unintelligible numerals of their ancestors, it is\nlikewise usual to find other terms existing which are practically\nnumerals already, and might drop at once into the recognized places of\nsuch, if by any chance a gap were made for them in the traditional\nseries. Had we room, for instance, for a new word instead of _two_, then\neither _pair_ (Latin _par_, \u2018equal\u2019) or _couple_ (Latin _copula_, \u2018bond\nor tie,\u2019) is ready to fill its place. Instead of _twenty_, the good\nEnglish word _score_, \u2018notch,\u2019 will serve our turn, while, for the same\npurpose, German can use _stiege_, possibly with the original sense of \u2018a\nstall full of cattle, a sty;\u2019 Old Norse _dr\u00f4tt_, \u2018a company,\u2019 Danish,\n_snees_. A list of such words used, but not grammatically classed as\nnumerals in European languages, shows great variety: examples are, Old\nNorse, _flockr_ (flock), 5; _sveit_, 6; _dr\u00f4tt_ (party), 20; _thiodh_\n(people), 30; _f\u00f6lk_ (people), 40; _\u00f6ld_ (people), 80; _her_ (army),\n100; Sleswig, _schilk_, 12 (as though we were to make a numeral out of\n\u2018shilling\u2019); Middle High-German, _rotte_, 4; New High-German, _mandel_,\n15; _schock_ (sheaf), 60. The Letts give a curious parallel to\nPolynesian cases just cited. They throw crabs and little fish three at a\ntime in counting them, and therefore the word _mettens_, \u2018a throw,\u2019 has\ncome to mean 3; while flounders being fastened in lots of thirty, the\nword _kahlis_, \u2018a cord,\u2019 becomes a term to express this number.[326]\n\nIn two other ways, the production of numerals from merely descriptive\nwords may be observed both among lower and higher races. The Gallas have\nno numerical fractional terms, but they make an equivalent set of terms\nfrom the division of the cakes of salt which they use as money. Thus\n_tchabnana_, \u2018a broken piece\u2019 (from _tchaba_, \u2018to break,\u2019 as we say \u2018a\nfraction\u2019), receives the meaning of one-half; a term which we may\ncompare with Latin _dimidium_, French _demi_. Ordinal numbers are\ngenerally derived from cardinal numbers, as _third_, _fourth_, _fifth_,\nfrom _three_, _four_, _five_. But among the very low ones there is to be\nseen evidence of independent formation quite unconnected with a\nconventional system of numerals already existing. Thus the Greenlander\ndid not use his \u2018one\u2019 to make \u2018first,\u2019 but calls it _sujugdlek_,\n\u2018foremost,\u2019 nor \u2018two\u2019 to make \u2018second,\u2019 which he calls _aip\u00e2_, \u2018his\ncompanion;\u2019 it is only at \u2018third\u2019 that he takes to his cardinals, and\nforms _pingajuat_ in connexion with _pingasut_, 3. So, in Indo-European\nlanguages, the ordinal _prathamas_, \u03c0\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, _primus_, _first_, has\nnothing to do with a numerical \u2018one,\u2019 but with the preposition _pra_,\n\u2018before,\u2019 as meaning simply \u2018foremost;\u2019 and although Greeks and Germans\ncall the next ordinal \u03b4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, _zweite_, from \u03b4\u03c5\u03cc, _zwei_, we call it\n_second_, Latin _secundus_, \u2018the following\u2019 (_sequi_), which is again a\ndescriptive sense-word.\n\nIf we allow ourselves to mix for a moment what is with what might be, we\ncan see how unlimited is the field of possible growth of numerals by\nmere adoption of the names of familiar things. Following the example of\nthe Sleswigers we might make _shilling_ a numeral for 12, and go on to\nexpress 4 by _groat_; _week_ would provide us with a name for 7, and\n_clover_ for 3. But this simple method of description is not the only\navailable one for the purpose of making numerals. The moment any series\nof names is arranged in regular order in our minds, it becomes a\ncounting-machine. I have read of a little girl who was set to count\ncards, and she counted them accordingly, January, February, March,\nApril. She might, of course, have reckoned them as Monday, Tuesday,\nWednesday. It is interesting to find a case coming under the same class\nin the language of grown people. We know that the numerical value of the\nHebrew letters is given with reference to their place in the alphabet,\nwhich was arranged for reasons that can hardly have had anything to do\nwith arithmetic. The Greek alphabet is modified from a Semitic one, but\ninstead of letting the numeral value of their letters follow throughout\ntheir newly-arranged alphabet, they reckon \u03b1, \u03b2, \u03b3, \u03b4, \u03b5, properly, as\n1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then put in \u03c3 for 6, and so manage to let \u03b9 stand for 10,\nas \u05d9 does in Hebrew, where it is really the 10th letter. Now, having\nthis conventional arrangement of letters made, it is evident that a\nGreek who had to give up the regular 1, 2, 3,\u2014\u03b5\u1f37\u03c2, \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf, \u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c2, could\nsupply their places at once by adopting the names of the letters which\nhad been settled to stand for them, thus calling 1 _alpha_, 2 _b\u0113ta_, 3\n_gamma_, and so onward. The thing has actually happened; a remarkable\nslang dialect of Albania, which is Greek in structure, though full of\nborrowed and mystified words and metaphors and epithets understood only\nby the initiated, has, as its equivalent for \u2018four\u2019 and \u2018ten,\u2019 the words\n\u03b4\u03ad\u03bb\u03c4\u03b1 and \u1f30\u1ff6\u03c4\u03b1.[327]\n\nWhile insisting on the value of such evidence as this in making out the\ngeneral principles of the formation of numerals, I have not found it\nprofitable to undertake the task of etymologizing the actual numerals of\nthe languages of the world, outside the safe limits of the systems of\ndigit-numerals among the lower races, already discussed. There may be in\nthe languages of the lower races other relics of the etymology of\nnumerals, giving the clue to the ideas according to which they were\nselected for an arithmetical purpose, but such relics seem scanty and\nindistinct.[328] There may even exist vestiges of a growth of numerals\nfrom descriptive words in our Indo-European languages, in Hebrew and\nArabic, in Chinese. Such etymologies have been brought forward,[329] and\nthey are consistent with what is known of the principles on which\nnumerals or quasi-numerals are really formed. But so far as I have been\nable to examine the evidence, the cases all seem so philologically\ndoubtful, that I cannot bring them forward in aid of the theory before\nus, and, indeed, think that if they succeed in establishing themselves,\nit will be by the theory supporting them, rather than by their\nsupporting the theory. This state of things, indeed, fits perfectly with\nthe view here adopted, that when a word has once been taken up to serve\nas a numeral, and is thenceforth wanted as a mere symbol, it becomes the\ninterest of language to allow it to break down into an apparent\nnonsense-word, from which all traces of original etymology have\ndisappeared.\n\nEtymological research into the derivation of numeral words thus hardly\ngoes with safety beyond showing in the languages of the lower culture\nfrequent instances of digit-numerals, words taken from direct\ndescription of the gestures of counting on fingers and toes. Beyond\nthis, another strong argument is available, which indeed covers almost\nthe whole range of the problem. The numerical systems of the world, by\nthe actual schemes of their arrangement, extend and confirm the opinion\nthat counting on fingers and toes was man\u2019s original method of\nreckoning, taken up and represented in language. To count the fingers on\none hand up to 5, and then go on with a second five, is a notation by\nfives, or as it is called, a quinary notation. To count by the use of\nboth hands to 10, and thence to reckon by tens, is a decimal notation.\nTo go on by hands and feet to 20, and thence to reckon by twenties, is a\nvigesimal notation. Now though in the larger proportion of known\nlanguages, no distinct mention of fingers and toes, hands and feet, is\nobservable in the numerals themselves, yet the very schemes of quinary,\ndecimal, and vigesimal notation remain to vouch for such\nhand-and-foot-counting having been the original method on which they\nwere founded. There seems no doubt that the number of the fingers led to\nthe adoption of the not especially suitable number 10 as a period in\nreckoning, so that decimal arithmetic is based on human anatomy. This is\nso obvious, that it is curious to see Ovid in his well-known lines\nputting the two facts close together, without seeing that the second was\nthe consequence of the first.\n\n              \u2018Annus erat, decimum cum luna receperat orbem.\n                Hic numerus magno tune in honore fuit.\n              Seu quia tot digiti, per quos numerare solemus:\n                Seu quia bis quino femina mense parit:\n              Seu quod adusque decem numero crescente venitur,\n                Principium spatiis sumitur inde novis.\u2019[330]\n\nIn surveying the languages of the world at large, it is found that among\ntribes or nations far enough advanced in arithmetic to count up to five\nin words, there prevails, with scarcely an exception, a method founded\non hand-counting, quinary, decimal, vigesimal, or combined of these. For\nperfect examples of the quinary method, we may take a Polynesian series\nwhich runs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5\u00b71, 5\u00b72, &c.; or a Melanesian series which\nmay be rendered as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2nd 1, 2nd 2, &c. Quinary leading into\ndecimal is well shown in the Fellata series 1 ... 5, 5\u00b71 ... 10, 10\u00b71\n...10\u00b75, 10\u00b75\u00b71 ... 20, ... 30, ... 40, &c. Pure decimal may be\ninstanced from Hebrew 1, 2 ... 10, 10\u00b71 ... 20, 20\u00b71 ... &c. Pure\nvigesimal is not usual, for the obvious reason that a set of independent\nnumerals to 20 would be inconvenient; but it takes on from quinary, as\nin Aztec, which may be analyzed as 1, 2 ... 5, 5\u00b71 ... 10, 10\u00b71 ...\n10\u00b75, 10\u00b75\u00b71 ... 20, 20\u00b71 ... 20\u00b710, 20\u00b710\u00b71 ... 40, &c.; or from\ndecimal, as in Basque, 1 ... 10, 10\u00b71 ... 20, 20\u00b71 ... 20\u00b710, 20\u00b710\u00b71\n... 40 &c.[331] It seems unnecessary to bring forward here the mass of\nlinguistic details required for any general demonstration of these\nprinciples of numeration among the races of the world. Prof. Pott, of\nHalle, has treated the subject on elaborate philological evidence, in a\nspecial monograph,[332] which is incidentally the most extensive\ncollection of details relating to numerals, indispensable to students\noccupied with such enquiries. For the present purpose the following\nrough generalization may suffice, that the quinary system is frequent\namong the lower races, among whom also the vigesimal system is\nconsiderably developed, but the tendency of the higher nations has been\nto avoid the one as too scanty, and the other as too cumbrous, and to\nuse the intermediate decimal system. These differences in the usage of\nvarious tribes and nations do not interfere with, but rather confirm,\nthe general principle which is their common cause, that man originally\nlearnt to reckon from his fingers and toes, and in various ways\nstereotyped in language the result of this primitive method.\n\nSome curious points as to the relation of these systems may be noticed\nin Europe. It was observed of a certain deaf-and-dumb boy, Oliver\nCaswell, that he learnt to count as high as 50 on his fingers, but\nalways \u2018fived,\u2019 reckoning, for instance, 18 objects as \u2018both hands, one\nhand, three fingers.\u2019[333] The suggestion has been made that the Greek\nuse of \u03c0\u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, \u2018to five,\u2019 as an expression for counting, is a trace\nof rude old quinary numeration (compare Finnish _lokket_ \u2018to count,\u2019\nfrom _lokke_ \u2018ten\u2019). Certainly, the Roman numerals I, II, ... V, VI ...\nX, XI ... XV, XVI, &c., form a remarkably well-defined written quinary\nsystem. Remains of vigesimal counting are still more instructive.\nCounting by twenties is a strongly marked Keltic characteristic. The\ncumbrous vigesimal notation could hardly be brought more strongly into\nview in any savage race than in such examples as Gaelic _aon deug is da\nfhichead_ \u2018one, ten, and two twenties,\u2019 i.e., 51; or Welsh _unarbymtheg\nar ugain_ \u2018one and fifteen over twenty,\u2019 i.e., 36; or Breton _unnek ha\ntriugent_ \u2018eleven and three twenties,\u2019 i.e., 71. Now French, being a\nRomance language, has a regular system of Latin tens up to 100;\n_cinquante_, _soixante_, _septante_, _huitante_, _nonante_, which are to\nbe found still in use in districts within the limits of the French\nlanguage, as in Belgium. Nevertheless, the clumsy system of reckoning by\ntwenties has broken out through the decimal system in France. The\n_septante_ is to a great extent suppressed, _soixante-quatorze_, for\ninstance, standing for 74; _quatre-vingts_ has fairly established itself\nfor 80, and its use continues into the nineties, _quatre-vingt-treize_\nfor 93; in numbers above 100 we find _six-vingts_, _sept-vingts_,\n_huit-vingts_, for 120, 140, 160, and a certain hospital has its name of\nLes Quinze-vingts from its 300 inmates. It is, perhaps, the most\nreasonable explanation of this curious phenomenon, to suppose the\nearlier Keltic system of France to have held its ground, modelling the\nlater French into its own ruder shape. In England, the Anglo-Saxon\nnumeration is decimal, _hund-seofontig_, 70; _hund-eahtatig_, 80;\n_hund-nigontig_, 90; _hund-teontig_, 100; _hund-enlufontig_, 110;\n_hund-twelftig_, 120. It may be here also by Keltic survival that the\nvigesimal reckoning by the \u2018score,\u2019 _threescore and ten_, _fourscore and\nthirteen_, &c., gained a position in English which it has not yet\ntotally lost.[334]\n\nFrom some minor details in numeration, ethnological hints may be gained.\nAmong rude tribes with scanty series of numerals, combination to make\nout new numbers is very soon resorted to. Among Australian tribes\naddition makes \u2018two-one,\u2019 \u2018two-two,\u2019 express 3 and 4; in Guachi\n\u2018two-two\u2019 is 4; in San Antonio \u2018four and two-one\u2019 is 7. The plan of\nmaking numerals by subtraction is known in North America, and is well\nshown in the Aino language of Yesso, where the words for 8 and 9\nobviously mean \u2018two from ten,\u2019 \u2018one from ten.\u2019 Multiplication appears,\nas in San Antonio, \u2018two-and-one-two,\u2019 and in a Tupi dialect \u2018two-three,\u2019\nto express 6. Division seems not known for such purposes among the lower\nraces, and quite exceptional among the higher. Facts of this class show\nvariety in the inventive devices of mankind, and independence in their\nformation of language. They are consistent at the same time with the\ngeneral principles of hand-counting. The traces of what might be called\nbinary, ternary, quaternary, senary reckoning, which turn on 2, 3, 4, 6,\nare mere varieties, leading up to, or lapsing into, quinary and decimal\nmethods.\n\nThe contrast is a striking one between the educated European, with his\neasy use of his boundless numeral series, and the Tasmanian, who reckons\n3, or anything beyond 2, as \u2018many,\u2019 and makes shift by his whole hand to\nreach the limit of \u2018man,\u2019 that is to say, 5. This contrast is due to\narrest of development in the savage, whose mind remains in the childish\nstate which the beginning of one of our nursery number-rhymes\nillustrates curiously. It runs\u2014\n\n                         \u2018One\u2019s none,\n                         Two\u2019s some,\n                         Three\u2019s a many,\n                         Four\u2019s a penny,\n                         Five\u2019s a little hundred.\u2019\n\nTo notice this state of things among savages and children raises\ninteresting points as to the early history of grammar. W. von Humboldt\nsuggested the analogy between the savage notion of 3 as \u2018many\u2019 and the\ngrammatical use of 3 to form a kind of superlative, in forms of which\n\u2018trismegistus,\u2019 \u2018ter felix,\u2019 \u2018thrice blest,\u2019 are familiar instances. The\nrelation of single, dual, and plural is well shown pictorially in the\nEgyptian hieroglyphics, where the picture of an object, a horse for\ninstance, is marked by a single line | if but one is meant, by two lines\n| | if two are meant, by three lines | | | if three or an indefinite\nplural number are meant. The scheme of grammatical number in some of the\nmost ancient and important languages of the world is laid down on the\nsame savage principle. Egyptian, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Greek,\nGothic, are examples of languages using singular, dual, and plural\nnumber; but the tendency of higher intellectual culture has been to\ndiscard the plan as inconvenient and unprofitable, and only to\ndistinguish singular and plural. No doubt the dual held its place by\ninheritance from an early period of culture, and Dr. D. Wilson seems\njustified in his opinion that it \u2018preserves to us the memorial of that\nstage of thought when all beyond two was an idea of indefinite\nnumber.\u2019[335]\n\nWhen two races at different levels of culture come into contact, the\nruder people adopt new art and knowledge, but at the same time their own\nspecial culture usually comes to a standstill, and even falls off. It is\nthus with the art of counting. We may be able to prove that the lower\nrace had actually been making great and independent progress in it, but\nwhen the higher race comes with a convenient and unlimited means of not\nonly naming all imaginable numbers, but of writing them down and\nreckoning with them by means of a few simple figures, what likelihood is\nthere that the barbarian\u2019s clumsy methods should be farther worked out?\nAs to the ways in which the numerals of the superior race are grafted on\nthe language of the inferior, Captain Grant describes the native slaves\nof Equatorial Africa occupying their lounging hours in learning the\nnumerals of their Arab masters.[336] Father Dobrizhoffer\u2019s account of\nthe arithmetical relations between the native Brazilians and the Jesuits\nis a good description of the intellectual contact between savages and\nmissionaries. The Guaranis, it appears, counted up to 4 with their\nnative numerals, and when they got beyond, they would say \u2018innumerable.\u2019\n\u2018But as counting is both of manifold use in common life, and in the\nconfessional absolutely indispensable in making a complete confession,\nthe Indians were daily taught at the public catechising in the church to\ncount in Spanish. On Sundays the whole people used to count with a loud\nvoice in Spanish, from 1 to 1,000.\u2019 The missionary, it is true, did not\nfind the natives use the numbers thus learnt very accurately\u2014\u2018We were\nwashing at a blackamoor,\u2019 he says.[337] If, however, we examine the\nmodern vocabularies of savage or low barbarian tribes, they will be\nfound to afford interesting evidence how really effective the influence\nof higher on lower civilization has been in this matter. So far as the\nruder system is complete and moderately convenient, it may stand, but\nwhere it ceases or grows cumbrous, and sometimes at a lower limit than\nthis, we can see the cleverer foreigner taking it into his own hands,\nsupplementing or supplanting the scanty numerals of the lower race by\nhis own. The higher race, though advanced enough to act thus on the\nlower, need not be itself at an extremely high level. Markham observes\nthat the Jivaras of the Mara\u00f1on, with native numerals up to 5, adopt for\nhigher numbers those of the Quichua, the language of the Peruvian\nIncas.[338] The cases of the indigenes of India are instructive. The\nKhonds reckon 1 and 2 in native words, and then take to borrowed Hindi\nnumerals. The Oraon tribes, while belonging to a race of the Dravidian\nstock, and having had a series of native numerals accordingly, appear to\nhave given up their use beyond 4, or sometimes even 2, and adopted Hindi\nnumerals in their place.[339] The South American Conibos were observed\nto count 1 and 2 with their own words, and then to borrow Spanish\nnumerals, much as a Brazilian dialect of the Tupi family is noticed in\nthe last century as having lost the native 5, and settled down into\nusing the old native numerals up to 3, and then continuing in\nPortuguese.[340] In Melanesia, the Annatom language can only count in\nits own numerals to 5, and then borrows English _siks_, _seven_, _eet_,\n_nain_, &c. In some Polynesian islands, though the native numerals are\nextensive enough, the confusion arising from reckoning by pairs and\nfours as well as units, has induced the natives to escape from\nperplexity by adopting _huneri_ and _tausani_.[341] And though the\nEsquimaux counting by hands, feet, and whole men, is capable of\nexpressing high numbers, it becomes practically clumsy even when it gets\namong the scores, and the Greenlander has done well to adopt _untr\u00eete_\nand _tusinte_ from his Danish teachers. Similarity of numerals in two\nlanguages is a point to which philologists attach great and deserved\nimportance in the question whether they are to be considered as sprung\nfrom a common stock. But it is clear that so far as one race may have\nborrowed numerals from another, this evidence breaks down. The fact that\nthis borrowing extends as low as 3, and may even go still lower for all\nwe know, is a reason for using the argument from connected numerals\ncautiously, as tending rather to prove intercourse than kinship.\n\nAt the other end of the scale of civilization, the adoption of numerals\nfrom nation to nation still presents interesting philological points.\nOur own language gives curious instances, as _second_ and _million_. The\nmanner in which English, in common with German, Dutch, Danish, and even\nRussian, has adopted Medi\u00e6val Latin _dozena_ (from _duodecim_) shows how\nconvenient an arrangement it was found to buy and sell by the _dozen_,\nand how necessary it was to have a special word for it. But the\nborrowing process has gone farther than this. If it were asked how many\nsets of numerals are now in use among English-speaking people in\nEngland, the probable reply would be one set, the regular _one_, _two_,\n_three_, &c. There exist, however, two borrowed sets as well. One is the\nwell-known dicing-set, _ace_, _deuce_, _tray_, _cater_, _cinque_,\n_size_; thus _size-ace_ is \u20186 and one,\u2019 _cinques_ or _sinks_, \u2018double\nfive.\u2019 These came to us from France, and correspond with the common\nFrench numerals, except _ace_, which is Latin _as_, a word of great\nphilological interest, meaning \u2018one.\u2019 The other borrowed set is to be\nfound in the Slang Dictionary. It appears that the English street-folk\nhave adopted as a means of secret communication a set of Italian\nnumerals from the organ-grinders and image-sellers, or by other ways\nthrough which Italian or Lingua Franca is brought into the low\nneighbourhoods of London. In so doing, they have performed a\nphilological operation not only curious, but instructive. By copying\nsuch expressions as, Italian _due soldi_, _tre soldi_, as equivalent to\n\u2018twopence,\u2019 \u2018threepence,\u2019 the word _saltee_ became a recognized slang\nterm for \u2018penny,\u2019 and pence are reckoned as follows:\u2014\n\n    _Oney saltee_ ...                         1_d._ uno soldo.\n    _Dooe saltee_ ...                         2_d._ due soldi.\n    _Tray saltee_ ...                         3_d._ tre soldi.\n    _Quarterer saltee_ ...                    4_d._ quattro soldi.\n    _Chinker saltee_  ...                     5_d._ cinque soldi.\n    _Say saltee_         ...                  6_d._ sei soldi.\n    _Say oney saltee or setter saltee_ ...    7_d._ sette soldi.\n    _Say dooe saltee or otter saltee_   ...   8_d._ otto soldi.\n    _Say tray saltee or nobba saltee_   ...   9_d._ nove soldi.\n    _Say quarterer saltee or dacha saltee_ ...      10_d._ dieci soldi.\n    _Say chinker saltee or dacha oney saltee_ ...   11_d._ undici soldi.\n    _Oney beong_ ...                                1_s._\n    _A beong say saltee_ ...                        1_s._ 6_d._\n    _Dooe beong say saltee or madza caroon_ ... 2_s._ 6_d._ (half crown,\n       mezza corona.)[342]\n\nOne of these series simply adopts Italian numerals decimally. But the\nother, when it has reached 6, having had enough of novelty, makes 7 by\n\u2018six-one,\u2019 and so continues. It is for no abstract reason that 6 is thus\nmade the turning-point, but simply because the costermonger is adding\npence up to the silver sixpence, and then adding pence again up to the\nshilling. Thus our duodecimal coinage has led to the practice of\ncounting by sixes, and produced a philological curiosity, a real senary\nnotation.\n\nOn evidence such as has been brought forward in this essay, the apparent\nrelations of savage to civilized culture, as regards the Art of\nCounting, may now be briefly stated in conclusion. The principal methods\nto which the development of the higher arithmetic are due, lie outside\nthe problem. They are mostly ingenious plans of expressing numerical\nrelation by written symbols. Among them are the Semitic scheme, and the\nGreek derived from it, of using the alphabet as a series of numerical\nsymbols, a plan not quite discarded by ourselves, at least for ordinals,\nas in schedules A, B, &c.; the use of initials of numeral words as\nfigures for the numbers themselves, as in Greek \u03a0 and \u0394 for 5 and 10,\nRoman C and M for 100 and 1,000; the device of expressing fractions,\nshown in a rudimentary stage in Greek \u03b3\u2019, \u03b4\u2019, for 1/3, 1/4, \u03b3\u03b4 for 3/4;\nthe introduction of the cipher or zero, by means of which the Arabic or\nIndian numerals have their value according to their position in a\ndecimal order corresponding to the succession of the rows of the abacus;\nand lastly, the modern notation of decimal fractions by carrying down\nbelow the unit the proportional order which for ages had been in use\nabove it. The ancient Egyptian and the still-used Roman and Chinese\nnumeration are indeed founded on savage picture-writing,[343] while the\nabacus and the swan-pan, the one still a valuable school-instrument, and\nthe other in full practical use, have their germ in the savage counting\nby groups of objects, as when South Sea Islanders count with coco-nut\nstalks, putting a little one aside every time they come to 10, and a\nlarge one when they come to 100, or when African negroes reckon with\npebbles or nuts, and every time they come to 5 put them aside in a\nlittle heap.[344]\n\nWe are here especially concerned with gesture-counting on the fingers,\nas an absolutely savage art still in use among children and peasants,\nand with the system of numeral words, as known to all mankind, appearing\nscantily among the lowest tribes, and reaching within savage limits to\ndevelopments which the highest civilization has only improved in detail.\nThese two methods of computation by gesture and word tell the story of\nprimitive arithmetic in a way that can be hardly perverted or\nmisunderstood. We see the savage who can only count to 2 or 3 or 4 in\nwords, but can go farther in dumb show. He has words for hands and\nfingers, feet and toes, and the idea strikes him that the words which\ndescribe the gesture will serve also to express its meaning, and they\nbecome his numerals accordingly. This did not happen only once, it\nhappened among different races in distant regions, for such terms as\n\u2018hand\u2019 for 5, \u2018hand-one\u2019 for 6, \u2018hands\u2019 for 10, \u2018two on the foot\u2019 for\n12, \u2018hands and feet\u2019 or \u2018man\u2019 for 20, \u2018two men\u2019 for 40, &c., show such\nuniformity as is due to common principle, but also such variety as is\ndue to independent working-out. These are \u2018pointer-facts\u2019 which have\ntheir place and explanation in a development-theory of culture, while a\ndegeneration-theory totally fails to take them in. They are distinct\nrecords of development, and of independent development, among savage\ntribes to whom some writers on civilization have rashly denied the very\nfaculty of self-improvement. The original meaning of a great part of the\nstock of numerals of the lower races, especially of those from 1 to 4,\nnot suited to be named as hand-numerals, is obscure. They may have been\nnamed from comparison with objects, in a way which is shown actually to\nhappen in such forms as \u2018together\u2019 for 2, \u2018throw\u2019 for 3, \u2018knot\u2019 for 4;\nbut any concrete meaning we may guess them to have once had seems now by\nmodification and mutilation to have passed out of knowledge.\n\nRemembering how ordinary words change and lose their traces of original\nmeaning in the course of ages, and that in numerals such breaking down\nof meaning is actually desirable, to make them fit for pure arithmetical\nsymbols, we cannot wonder that so large a proportion of existing\nnumerals should have no discernible etymology. This is especially true\nof the 1, 2, 3, 4, among low and high races alike, the earliest to be\nmade, and therefore the earliest to lose their primary significance.\nBeyond these low numbers the languages of the higher and lower races\nshow a remarkable difference. The hand-and-foot numerals, so prevalent\nand unmistakable in savage tongues like Esquimaux and Zulu, are scarcely\nif at all traceable in the great languages of civilization, such as\nSanskrit and Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. This state of things is quite\nconformable to the development-theory of language. We may argue that it\nwas in comparatively recent times that savages arrived at the invention\nof hand-numerals, and that therefore the etymology of such numerals\nremains obvious. But it by no means follows from the non-appearance of\nsuch primitive forms in cultured Asia and Europe, that they did not\nexist there in remote ages; they may since have been rolled and battered\nlike pebbles by the stream of time, till their original shapes can no\nlonger be made out. Lastly, among savage and civilized races alike, the\ngeneral framework of numeration stands throughout the world as an\nabiding monument of prim\u00e6val culture. This framework, the all but\nuniversal scheme of reckoning by fives, tens, and twenties, shows that\nthe childish and savage practice of counting on fingers and toes lies at\nthe foundation of our arithmetical science. Ten seems the most\nconvenient arithmetical basis offered by systems founded on\nhand-counting, but twelve would have been better, and duodecimal\narithmetic is in fact a protest against the less convenient decimal\narithmetic in ordinary use. The case is the not uncommon one of high\ncivilization bearing evident traces of the rudeness of its origin in\nancient barbaric life.\n\nFootnote 299:\n\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Islands,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 390.\n\nFootnote 300:\n\n  Crowther, \u2018Yoruba Vocab.\u2019; Burton, \u2018W. & W. from W. Africa,\u2019 p. 253.\n  \u2018O daju danu, o ko mo essan messan.\u2014You (may seem) very clever, (but)\n  you can\u2019t tell 9 \u00d7 9.\u2019\n\nFootnote 301:\n\n  Low in \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p. 408; \u2018Year-Books Edw. I.\u2019\n  (xx.-i.) ed. Horwood, p. 220.\n\nFootnote 302:\n\n  Spix and Martius, \u2018Reise in Brazilien,\u2019 p. 387.\n\nFootnote 303:\n\n  \u2018Tasmanian Journal,\u2019 vol. i.; Backhouse, \u2018Narr.\u2019 p. 104; Milligan in\n  \u2018Papers, &c., Roy. Soc. Tasmania,\u2019 vol. iii. part ii. 1859.\n\nFootnote 304:\n\n  Oldfield in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019; vol. iii. p. 291; Lang, \u2018Queensland,\u2019 p.\n  433; \u2018Latham, Comp. Phil.\u2019 p. 352. Other terms in Bonwick, l. c.\n\nFootnote 305:\n\n  Sicard, \u2018Th\u00e9orie des Signes pour l\u2019Instruction des Sourds-Muets,\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 634.\n\nFootnote 306:\n\n  Stanbridge in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 304.\n\nFootnote 307:\n\n  Martius, \u2018Gloss. Brasil,\u2019 p. 15.\n\nFootnote 308:\n\n  Kracheninnikow, \u2018Kamtchatka,\u2019 p. 17.\n\nFootnote 309:\n\n  Gumilla, \u2018Historia del Orenoco,\u2019 vol. iii. ch. xlv.; Pott,\n  \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 p. 16.\n\nFootnote 310:\n\n  The Eastern brokers have used for ages, and still use, the method of\n  secretly indicating numbers to one another in bargaining, \u2018by snipping\n  fingers under a cloth.\u2019 \u2018Every joynt and every finger hath his\n  signification,\u2019 as an old traveller says, and the system seems a more\n  or less artificial development of ordinary finger-counting, the thumb\n  and little finger stretched out, and the other fingers closed,\n  standing for 6 or 60, the addition of the fourth finger making 7 or\n  70, and so on. It is said that between two brokers settling a price by\n  thus snipping with the fingers, cleverness in bargaining, offering a\n  little more, hesitating, expressing an obstinate refusal to go\n  farther, &c., comes out just as in chaffering in words.\n\nFootnote 311:\n\n  Gilij; \u2018Saggio di Storia Americana,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 332 (Tamanac,\n  Maypure). Martius, \u2018Gloss. Brasil,\u2019 (Cayriri, Tupi, Carib, Omagua,\n  Juri, Guachi, Coretu, Cherentes, Maxuruna, Caripuna, Cauixana,\n  Caraj\u00e1s, Coroado, &c.); Dobrizhoffer, \u2018Abipones,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 168;\n  Humboldt, \u2018Monumens,\u2019 pl. xliv. (Muysca).\n\nFootnote 312:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 286; Kleinschmidt, \u2018Gr. der Gr\u00f6nl. Spr.;\u2019 Rae in\n  \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 145.\n\nFootnote 313:\n\n  Milligan, l. c.; G. F. Moore, \u2018Vocab. W. Australia.\u2019 Compare a series\n  of quinary numerals to 9, from Sydney, in Pott, \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 p. 46.\n\nFootnote 314:\n\n  Gabelentz, \u2018Melanesiche Sprachen,\u2019 p. 183.\n\nFootnote 315:\n\n  W. v. Humboldt, \u2018Kawi-Spr.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 308; corroborated by \u2018As.\n  Res.\u2019 vol. vi. p. 90; \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 182, &c.\n\nFootnote 316:\n\n  K\u00f6lle, \u2018Gr. of Vei Lang.\u2019 p. 27.\n\nFootnote 317:\n\n  Schreuder, \u2018Gr. for Zulu Sproget,\u2019 p. 30; D\u00f6hne, \u2018Zulu Dic.\u2019; Grout,\n  \u2018Zulu Gr.\u2019 See Hahn, \u2018Gr. des Herero.\u2019\n\nFootnote 318:\n\n  Sir W. Jones in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. ii. 1790, p. 296; E. Jacquet in \u2018Nouv.\n  Journ. Asiat.\u2019 1835; W. v. Humboldt, \u2018Kawi-Spr.\u2019 vol. i. p. 19. This\n  system of recording dates, &c., extended as far as Tibet and the\n  Indian Archipelago. Many important points of Oriental chronology\n  depend on such formulas. Unfortunately their evidence is more or less\n  vitiated by inconsistencies in the use of words for numbers.\n\nFootnote 319:\n\n  Eyre, \u2018Australia,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 324; Sch\u00fcrmann, \u2018Vocab. of Parnkalla\n  Lang,\u2019 gives forms partially corresponding.\n\nFootnote 320:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 New Ser. vol. ii. 1858, p. 118 (Sulong, Awang,\n  Itam (\u2018black\u2019), Puteh (\u2018white\u2019), Allang, Pendeh, Kechil or Bongsu);\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 494. The details are imperfectly\n  given, and seem not all correct.\n\nFootnote 321:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Madagascar,\u2019 vol. i. p. 154. Also Andriampaivo, or\n  Lahi-Zandrina, for last male; Andrianivo for intermediate male.\n  Malagasy _lahy_, \u2018male\u2019= Malay _laki_; Malagasy _vavy_, \u2018female\u2019 =\n  Tongan _fafine_, Maori _wahine_, \u2018woman;\u2019 comp. Malay _b\u00e2tina_,\n  \u2018female.\u2019\n\nFootnote 322:\n\n  M. Eastman, \u2018Dahcotah; or, Life and Legends of the Sioux,\u2019 p. xxv.\n\nFootnote 323:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ethnol. Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. (Akra); Ploss, \u2018Das Kind,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  139 (Elmina).\n\nFootnote 324:\n\n  H. Hale, \u2018Ethnography and Philology,\u2019 vol. vi. of Wilkes, U.S.\n  Exploring Exp., Philadelphia, 1846, pp. 172, 289. (N.B.\u2014The ordinary\n  editions do not contain this important volume.)\n\nFootnote 325:\n\n  Bowen, \u2018Gr. and Dic. of Yoruba.\u2019 Burton in \u2018Mem. Anthrop. Soc.,\u2019 vol.\n  i. p. 314.\n\nFootnote 326:\n\n  See Pott, \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 pp. 78, 99, 124, 161; Grimm, \u2018Deutsche\n  Rechtsalterth\u00fcmer,\u2019 ch. v.\n\nFootnote 327:\n\n  Francisque-Michel, \u2018Argot,\u2019 p. 483.\n\nFootnote 328:\n\n  Of evidence of this class, the following deserves\n  attention:\u2014Dobrizhoffer, \u2018Abipones,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 169, gives\n  _geyenk\u00f1at\u00e8_, \u2018ostrich-toes,\u2019 as the numeral for 4, their ostrich\n  having three toes before and one behind, and _ne\u00e8nhalek_, \u2018a\n  five-coloured spotted hide,\u2019 as the numeral 5. D\u2019Orbigny, \u2018L\u2019Homme\n  Am\u00e9ricain,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 163, remarks:\u2014\u2018Les Chiquitos ne savent compter\n  que jusqu\u2019\u00e0 un (_tama_), n\u2019ayant plus ensuite que des termes de\n  comparaison.\u2019 K\u00f6lle, \u2018Gr. of Vei Lang.,\u2019 notices that _f\u00e9ra_ means\n  both \u2018with\u2019 and 2, and thinks the former meaning original (compare the\n  Tah. _piti_, \u2018together,\u2019 thence 2). Quichua _chuncu_, \u2018heap,\u2019\n  _chunca_, 10, may be connected. Aztec, _ce_, 1, _cen-tli_, \u2018grain,\u2019\n  may be connected. On possible derivations of 2 from hand, &c.,\n  especially Hottentot, _t\u2019koam_, \u2018hand, 2,\u2019 see Pott, \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 p.\n  29.\n\nFootnote 329:\n\n  See Farrar, \u2018Chapters on Language,\u2019 p. 223. Benloew, \u2018Recherches sur\n  l\u2019Origine des Noms de Nombre;\u2019 Pictet, \u2018Origines Indo-Europ.\u2019 part ii.\n  ch. ii.; Pott, \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 p. 128, &c.; A. v. Humboldt\u2019s plausible\n  comparison between Skr. _pancha_, 5, and Pers. _penjeh_, \u2018the palm of\n  the hand with the fingers spread out; the outspread foot of a bird,\u2019\n  as though 5 were called _pancha_ from being like a hand, is erroneous.\n  The Persian _penjeh_ is itself derived from the numeral 5, as in Skr.\n  the hand is called _pancha\u00e7\u00e2kha_, \u2018the five-branched.\u2019 The same\n  formation is found in English; slang describes a man\u2019s hand as his\n  \u2018fives,\u2019 or \u2018bunch of fives,\u2019 thence the name of the game of fives,\n  played by striking the ball with the open hand, a term which has made\n  its way out of slang into accepted language. Burton describes the\n  polite Arab at a meal, calling his companion\u2019s attention to a grain of\n  rice fallen into his beard. \u2018The gazelle is in the garden,\u2019 he says,\n  with a smile. \u2018We will hunt her with the _five_,\u2019 is the reply.\n\nFootnote 330:\n\n  Ovid, Fast. iii. 121.\n\nFootnote 331:\n\n  The actual word-numerals of the two quinary series are given as\n  examples. Triton\u2019s Bay, 1, _samosi_; 2, _ro\u00ebeti_; 3, _touwroe_; 4,\n  _faat_; 5, _rimi_; 6, _rim-samos_; 7, _rim-ro\u00ebeti_; 8, _rim-touwroe_;\n  9, _rim-faat_; 10, _woetsja_. Lifu, 1, _pacha_; 2, _lo_; 3, _kun_; 4,\n  _thack_; 5, _thabumb_; 6, _lo-acha_; 7, _lo-a-lo_; 8, _lo-kunn_; 9,\n  _lo-thack_; 10, _te-bennete_.\n\nFootnote 332:\n\n  A. F. Pott, \u2018Die Quin\u00e4re und Vigesimale Z\u00e4hlmethode bei V\u00f6lkern aller\n  Welttheile,\u2019 Halle, 1847; supplemented in \u2018Festgabe zur xxv.\n  Versammlung Deutscher Philologen, &c., in Halle\u2019 (1867).\n\nFootnote 333:\n\n  \u2018Account of Laura Bridgman,\u2019 London, 1845, p. 159.\n\nFootnote 334:\n\n  Compare the Rajmahali tribes adopting Hindi numerals, yet reckoning by\n  twenties. Shaw, l.c. The use of a \u2018score\u2019 as an indefinite number in\n  England, and similarly of 20 in France, of 40 in the Hebrew of the Old\n  Testament and the Arabic of the Thousand and One Nights, may be among\n  other traces of vigesimal reckoning.\n\nFootnote 335:\n\n  D. Wilson, \u2018Prehistoric Man,\u2019 p. 616.\n\nFootnote 336:\n\n  Grant in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 90.\n\nFootnote 337:\n\n  Dobrizhoffer, \u2018Gesch. der Abiponer,\u2019 p. 205; Eng. Trans. vol. ii. p.\n  171.\n\nFootnote 338:\n\n  Markham in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 166.\n\nFootnote 339:\n\n  Latham, \u2018Comp. Phil.\u2019 p. 186; Shaw in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 96;\n  \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1866, part ii. pp. 27, 204, 251.\n\nFootnote 340:\n\n  St. Cricq in \u2018Bulletin de la Soc. de G\u00e9og.\u2019 1853, p. 286; Pott,\n  \u2018Z\u00e4hlmethode,\u2019 p. 7.\n\nFootnote 341:\n\n  Gabelentz, p. 89; Hale, l.c.\n\nFootnote 342:\n\n  J. C. Hotten, \u2018Slang Dictionary,\u2019 p. 218.\n\nFootnote 343:\n\n  \u2018Early History of Mankind,\u2019 p. 106.\n\nFootnote 344:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 91; Klemm, C. G. vol. iii. p. 383.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VIII.\n                               MYTHOLOGY.\n\n    Mythic Fancy based, like other thought, on Experience\u2014Mythology\n    affords evidence for studying laws of Imagination\u2014Change in public\n    opinion as to credibility of Myths\u2014Myths rationalized into Allegory\n    and History\u2014Ethnological import and treatment of Myth\u2014Myth to be\n    studied in actual existence and growth among modern savages and\n    barbarians\u2014Original sources of Myth\u2014Early doctrine of general\n    animation of Nature\u2014Personification of Sun, Moon, and Stars;\n    Water-spout, Sand pillar, Rainbow, Waterfall, Pestilence\u2014Analogy\n    worked into Myth and Metaphor\u2014Myths of Rain, Thunder, &c.\u2014Effect of\n    Language in formation of Myth\u2014Material Personification primary,\n    Verbal Personification secondary\u2014Grammatical Gender, male and\n    female, animate and inanimate, in relation to Myth\u2014Proper Names of\n    objects in relation to Myth\u2014Mental State proper to promote mythic\n    imagination\u2014Doctrine of Werewolves\u2014Phantasy and Fancy.\n\n\nAmong those opinions which are produced by a little knowledge, to be\ndispelled by a little more, is the belief in an almost boundless\ncreative power of the human imagination. The superficial student, mazed\nin a crowd of seemingly wild and lawless fancies, which he thinks to\nhave no reason in nature nor pattern in this material world, at first\nconcludes them to be new births from the imagination of the poet, the\ntale-teller, and the seer. But little by little, in what seemed the most\nspontaneous fiction, a more comprehensive study of the sources of poetry\nand romance begins to disclose a cause for each fancy, an education that\nhas led up to each train of thought, a store of inherited materials from\nout of which each province of the poet\u2019s land has been shaped, and built\nover, and peopled. Backward from our own times, the course of mental\nhistory may be traced through the changes wrought by modern schools of\nthought and fancy, upon an intellectual inheritance handed down to them\nfrom earlier generations. And through remoter periods, as we recede more\nnearly towards primitive conditions of our race, the threads which\nconnect new thought with old do not always vanish from our sight. It is\nin large measure possible to follow them as clues leading back to that\nactual experience of nature and life, which is the ultimate source of\nhuman fancy. What Matthew Arnold has written of Man\u2019s thoughts as he\nfloats along the River of Time, is most true of his mythic imagination:\u2014\n\n                 \u2018As is the world on the banks\n                 So is the mind of the man.\n\n                 Only the tract where he sails\n                 He wots of: only the thoughts,\n                 Raised by the objects he passes, are his.\u2019\n\nImpressions thus received the mind will modify and work upon,\ntransmitting the products to other minds in shapes that often seem new,\nstrange, and arbitrary, but which yet result from processes familiar to\nour experience, and to be found at work in our own individual\nconsciousness. The office of our thought is to develop, to combine, and\nto derive, rather than to create; and the consistent laws it works by\nare to be discerned even in the unsubstantial structures of the\nimagination. Here, as elsewhere in the universe, there is to be\nrecognized a sequence from cause to effect, a sequence intelligible,\ndefinite, and where knowledge reaches the needful exactness, even\ncalculable.\n\nThere is perhaps no better subject-matter through which to study the\nprocesses of the imagination, than the well-marked incidents of mythical\nstory, ranging as they do through every known period of civilization,\nand through all the physically varied tribes of mankind. Here the divine\nMaui of New Zealand, fishing up the island with his enchanted hook from\nthe bottom of the sea, will take his place in company with the Indian\nVishnu, diving to the depth of the ocean in his avatar of the Boar, to\nbring up the submerged earth on his monstrous tusks; and here Baiame the\ncreator, whose voice the rude Australians hear in the rolling thunder,\nwill sit throned by the side of Olympian Zeus himself. Starting with the\nbold rough nature-myths into which the savage moulds the lessons he has\nlearnt from his childlike contemplation of the universe, the\nethnographer can follow these rude fictions up into times when they were\nshaped and incorporated into complex mythologic systems, gracefully\nartistic in Greece, stiff and monstrous in Mexico, swelled into\nbombastic exaggeration in Buddhist Asia. He can watch how the mythology\nof classic Europe, once so true to nature and so quick with her\nceaseless life, fell among the commentators to be plastered with\nallegory or euhemerized into dull sham history. At last, in the midst of\nmodern civilization, he finds the classic volumes studied rather for\ntheir manner than for their matter, or mainly valued for their\nantiquarian evidence of the thoughts of former times; while relics of\nstructures reared with skill and strength by the myth-makers of the past\nmust now be sought in scraps of nursery folk-lore, in vulgar\nsuperstitions and old dying legends, in thoughts and allusions carried\non from ancient days by the perennial stream of poetry and romance, in\nfragments of old opinion which still hold an inherited rank gained in\npast ages of intellectual history. But this turning of mythology to\naccount as a means of tracing the history of laws of mind, is a branch\nof science scarcely discovered till the nineteenth century. Before\nentering here on some researches belonging to it, there will be\nadvantage in glancing at the views of older mythologists, to show\nthrough what changes their study has at length reached a condition in\nwhich it has a scientific value.\n\nIt is a momentous phase of the education of mankind, when the regularity\nof nature has so imprinted itself upon men\u2019s minds that they begin to\nwonder how it is that the ancient legends which they were brought up to\nhear with such reverent delight, should describe a world so strangely\ndifferent from their own. Why, they ask, are the gods and giants and\nmonsters no longer seen to lead their prodigious lives on earth\u2014is it\nperchance that the course of things is changed since the old days? Thus\nit seemed to Pausanias the historian, that the wide-grown wickedness of\nthe world had brought it to pass that times were no longer as of old,\nwhen Lykaon was turned into a wolf, and Niobe into a stone, when men\nstill sat as guests at table with the gods, or were raised like Herakles\nto become gods themselves. Up to modern times, the hypothesis of a\nchanged world has more or less availed to remove the difficulty of\nbelief in ancient wonder-tales. Yet though always holding firmly a\npartial ground, its application was soon limited for these obvious\nreasons, that it justified falsehood and truth alike with even-handed\nfavour, and utterly broke down that barrier of probability which in some\nmeasure has always separated fact from fancy. The Greek mind found other\noutlets to the problem. In the words of Mr. Grote, the ancient legends\nwere cast back into an undefined past, to take rank among the hallowed\ntraditions of divine or heroic antiquity, gratifying to extol by\nrhetoric, but repulsive to scrutinize in argument. Or they were\ntransformed into shapes more familiar to experience, as when Plutarch,\ntelling the tale of Theseus, begs for indulgent hearers to accept mildly\nthe archaic story, and assures them that he has set himself to purify it\nby reason, that it may receive the aspect of history.[345] This process\nof giving fable the aspect of history, this profitless art of\ntransforming untrue impossibilities into untrue possibilities, has been\ncarried on by the ancients, and by the moderns after them, especially\naccording to the two following methods.\n\nMen have for ages been more or less conscious of that great mental\ndistrict lying between disbelief and belief, where room is found for all\nmythic interpretation, good or bad. It being admitted that some legend\nis not the real narrative which it purports to be, they do not thereupon\nwipe it out from book and memory as simply signifying nothing, but they\nask what original sense may be in it, out of what older story it may be\na second growth, or what actual event or current notion may have\nsuggested its development into the state in which they find it? Such\nquestions, however, prove almost as easy to answer plausibly as to set;\nand then, in the endeavour to obtain security that these off-hand\nanswers are the true ones, it becomes evident that the problem admits of\nan indefinite number of apparent solutions, not only different but\nincompatible. This radical uncertainty in the speculative interpretation\nof myths is forcibly stated by Lord Bacon, in the preface to his \u2018Wisdom\nof the Ancients.\u2019 \u2018Neither am I ignorant,\u2019 he says, \u2018how fickle and\ninconsistent a thing fiction is, as being subject to be drawn and\nwrested any way, and how great the commodity of wit and discourse is,\nthat is able to apply things well, yet so as never meant by the first\nauthors.\u2019 The need of such a caution may be judged of from the very\ntreatise to which Bacon prefaced it, for there he is to be seen plunging\nheadlong into the very pitfall of which he had so discreetly warned his\ndisciples. He undertakes, after the manner of not a few philosophers\nbefore and after him, to interpret the classic myths of Greece as moral\nallegories. Thus the story of Memnon depicts the destinies of rash young\nmen of promise; while Perseus symbolizes war, and when of the three\nGorgons he attacks only the mortal one, this means that only practicable\nwars are to be attempted. It would not be easy to bring out into a\nstronger light the difference between a fanciful application of a myth,\nand its analysis into its real elements. For here, where the interpreter\nbelieved himself to be reversing the process of myth-making, he was in\nfact only carrying it a stage further in the old direction, and out of\nthe suggestion of one train of thought evolving another connected with\nit by some more or less remote analogy. Any of us may practise this\nsimple art, each according to his own fancy. If, for instance, political\neconomy happens for the moment to lie uppermost in our mind, we may with\ndue gravity expound the story of Perseus as an allegory of trade:\nPerseus himself is Labour, and he finds Andromeda, who is Profit,\nchained and ready to be devoured by the monster Capital; he rescues her\nand carries her off in triumph. To know anything of poetry or of\nmysticism is to know this reproductive growth of fancy as an admitted\nand admired intellectual process. But when it comes to sober\ninvestigation of the processes of mythology, the attempt to penetrate to\nthe foundation of an old fancy will scarcely be helped by burying it yet\ndeeper underneath a new one.\n\nNevertheless, allegory has had a share in the development of myths which\nno interpreter must overlook. The fault of the rationalizer lay in\ntaking allegory beyond its proper action, and applying it as a universal\nsolvent to reduce dark stories to transparent sense. The same is true of\nthe other great rationalizing process, founded also, to some extent, on\nfact. Nothing is more certain than that real personages often have\nmythic incidents tacked on to their history, and that they even figure\nin tales of which the very substance is mythic. No one disbelieves in\nthe existence of Solomon because of his legendary adventure in the\nValley of Apes, nor of Attila because he figures in the Nibelungen Lied.\nSir Francis Drake is made not less but more real to us by the cottage\ntales which tell how he still leads the Wild Hunt over Dartmoor, and\nstill rises to his revels when they beat at Buckland Abbey the drum that\nhe carried round the world. The mixture of fact and fable in traditions\nof great men shows that legends containing monstrous fancy may yet have\na basis in historic fact. But, on the strength of this, the mythologists\narranged systematic methods of reducing legend to history, and thereby\ncontrived at once to stultify the mythology they professed to explain,\nand to ruin the history they professed to develop. So far as the plan\nconsisted in mere suppression of the marvellous, a notion of its\ntrustworthiness may be obtained, as Sir G. W. Cox well puts it, in\nrationalizing Jack the Giant-Killer by leaving out the giants. So far as\nit treated legendary wonders as being matter-of-fact disguised in\nmetaphor, the mere naked statement of the results of the method is to\nour minds its most cruel criticism. Thus already in classic times men\nwere declaring that Atlas was a great astronomer who taught the use of\nthe sphere, and was therefore represented with the world resting on his\nshoulders. To such a pass had come the decay of myth into commonplace,\nthat the great Heaven-god of the Aryan race, the living personal Heaven\nhimself, Zeus the Almighty, was held to have been a king of Krete, and\nthe Kretans could show to wondering strangers his sepulchre, with the\nvery name of the great departed inscribed upon it. The modern\n\u2018euhemerists\u2019 (so called from Euhemeros of Messenia, a great professor\nof the art in the time of Alexander) in part adopted the old\ninterpretations, and sometimes fairly left their Greek and Roman\nteachers behind in the race after prosaic possibility. They inform us\nthat Jove smiting the giants with his thunderbolts was a king repressing\na sedition; Danae\u2019s golden shower was the money with which her guards\nwere bribed; Prometheus made clay images, whence it was hyperbolically\nsaid that he created man and woman out of clay; and when Daidalos was\nrelated to have made figures which walked, this meant that he improved\nthe shapeless old statues, and separated their legs. Old men still\nremember as the guides of educated opinion in their youth the learned\nbooks in which these fancies are solemnly put forth; some of our school\nmanuals still go on quoting them with respect, and a few straggling\nwriters carry on a remnant of the once famous system of which the Abb\u00e9\nBanier was so distinguished an exponent.[346] But it has of late fallen\non evil days, and mythologists in authority have treated it in so\nhigh-handed a fashion as to bring it into general contempt. So far has\nthe feeling against the abuse of such argument gone, that it is now\nreally desirable to warn students that it has a reasonable as well as an\nunreasonable side, and to remind them that some wild legends undoubtedly\ndo, and therefore that many others may, contain a kernel of historic\ntruth.\n\nLearned and ingenious as the old systems of rationalizing myth have\nbeen, there is no doubt that they are in great measure destined to be\nthrown aside. It is not that their interpretations are proved\nimpossible, but that mere possibility in mythological speculation is now\nseen to be such a worthless commodity, that every investigator devoutly\nwishes there were not such plenty of it. In assigning origins to myths,\nas in every other scientific enquiry, the fact is that increased\ninformation, and the use of more stringent canons of evidence, have\nraised far above the old level the standard of probability required to\nproduce conviction. There are many who describe our own time as an\nunbelieving time, but it is by no means sure that posterity will accept\nthe verdict. No doubt it is a sceptical and a critical time, but then\nscepticism and criticism are the very conditions for the attainment of\nreasonable belief. Thus, where the positive credence of ancient history\nhas been affected, it is not that the power of receiving evidence has\ndiminished, but that the consciousness of ignorance has grown. We are\nbeing trained to the facts of physical science, which we can test and\ntest again, and we feel it a fall from this high level of proof when we\nturn our minds to the old records which elude such testing, and are even\nadmitted on all hands to contain statements not to be relied on.\nHistorical criticism becomes hard and exacting, even where the chronicle\nrecords events not improbable in themselves; and the moment that the\nstory falls out of our scheme of the world\u2019s habitual course, the ever\nrepeated question comes out to meet it\u2014Which is the more likely, that so\nunusual an event should have really happened, or that the record should\nbe misunderstood or false? Thus we gladly seek for sources of history in\nantiquarian relics, in undesigned and collateral proofs, in documents\nnot written to be chronicles. But can any reader of geology say we are\ntoo incredulous to believe wonders, if the evidence carry any fair\nwarrant of their truth? Was there ever a time when lost history was\nbeing reconstructed, and existing history rectified, more zealously than\nthey are now by a whole army of travellers, excavators, searchers of old\ncharters, and explorers of forgotten dialects? The very myths that were\ndiscarded as lying fables, prove to be sources of history in ways that\ntheir makers and transmitters little dreamed of. Their meaning has been\nmisunderstood, but they have a meaning. Every tale that was ever told\nhas a meaning for the times it belongs to; even a lie, as the Spanish\nproverb says, is a lady of birth (\u2018la mentira es hija de algo\u2019). Thus,\nas evidence of the development of thought, as records of long past\nbelief and usage, even in some measure as materials for the history of\nthe nations owning them, the old myths have fairly taken their place\namong historic facts; and with such the modern historian, so able and\nwilling to pull down, is also able and willing to rebuild.\n\nOf all things, what mythologic work needs is breadth of knowledge and of\nhandling. Interpretations made to suit a narrow view reveal their\nweakness when exposed to a wide one. See Herodotus rationalizing the\nstory of the infant Cyrus, exposed and suckled by a bitch; he simply\nrelates that the child was brought up by a herdsman\u2019s wife named Spak\u00f4\n(in Greek Kyn\u00f4), whence arose the fable that a real bitch rescued and\nfed him. So far so good\u2014for a single case. But does the story of Romulus\nand Remus likewise record a real event, mystified in the self-same\nmanner by a pun on a nurse\u2019s name, which happened to be a she-beast\u2019s?\nDid the Roman twins also really happen to be exposed, and brought up by\na foster-mother who happened to be called Lupa? Positively, the\n\u2018Lempriere\u2019s Dictionary\u2019 of our youth (I quote the 16th edition of 1831)\ngravely gives this as the origin of the famous legend. Yet, if we look\nproperly into the matter, we find that these two stories are but\nspecimens of a widespread mythic group, itself only a section of that\nfar larger body of traditions in which exposed infants are saved to\nbecome national heroes. For other examples, Slavonic folk-lore tells of\nthe she-wolf and she-bear that suckled those superhuman twins, Waligora\nthe mountain-roller and Wyrwidab the oak-uprooter; Germany has its\nlegend of Dieterich, called Wolfdieterich from his foster-mother the\nshe-wolf; in India, the episode recurs in the tales of Satavahana and\nthe lioness, and Sing-Baba and the tigress; legend tells of Burta-Chino,\nthe boy who was cast into a lake, and preserved by a she-wolf to become\nfounder of the Turkish kingdom; and even the savage Yuracar\u00e9s of Brazil\ntell of their divine hero Tiri, who was suckled by a jaguar.[347]\n\nScientific myth-interpretation, on the contrary, is actually\nstrengthened by such comparison of similar cases. Where the effect of\nnew knowledge has been to construct rather than to destroy, it is found\nthat there are groups of myth-interpretations for which wider and deeper\nevidence makes a wider and deeper foundation. The principles which\nunderlie a solid system of interpretation are really few and simple. The\ntreatment of similar myths from different regions, by arranging them in\nlarge compared groups, makes it possible to trace in mythology the\noperation of imaginative processes recurring with the evident regularity\nof mental law; and thus stories of which a single instance would have\nbeen a mere isolated curiosity, take their place among well-marked and\nconsistent structures of the human mind. Evidence like this will again\nand again drive us to admit that even as \u2018truth is stranger than\nfiction,\u2019 so myth may be more uniform than history.\n\nThere lies within our reach, moreover, the evidence of races both\nancient and modern, who so faithfully represent the state of thought to\nwhich myth-development belongs, as still to keep up both the\nconsciousness of meaning in their old myths, and the unstrained\nunaffected habit of creating new ones. Savages have been for untold\nages, and still are, living in the myth-making stage of the human mind.\nIt was through sheer ignorance and neglect of this direct knowledge how\nand by what manner of men myths are really made, that their simple\nphilosophy has come to be buried under masses of commentators\u2019 rubbish.\nThough never wholly lost, the secret of mythic interpretation was all\nbut forgotten. Its recovery has been mainly due to modern students who\nhave with vast labour and skill searched the ancient language, poetry,\nand folk-lore of our own race, from the cottage tales collected by the\nbrothers Grimm to the Rig-Veda edited by Max M\u00fcller. Aryan language and\nliterature now open out with wonderful range and clearness a view of the\nearly stages of mythology, displaying those primitive germs of the\npoetry of nature, which later ages swelled and distorted till childlike\nfancy sank into superstitious mystery. It is not proposed here to\nenquire specially into this Aryan mythology, of which so many eminent\nstudents have treated, but to compare some of the most important\ndevelopments of mythology among the various races of mankind, especially\nin order to determine the general relation of the myths of savage tribes\nto the myths of civilized nations. The argument does not aim at a\ngeneral discussion of the mythology of the world, numbers of important\ntopics being left untouched which would have to be considered in a\ngeneral treatise. The topics chosen are mostly such as are fitted, by\nthe strictness of evidence and argument applying to them, to make a\nsound basis for the treatment of myth as bearing on the general\nethnological problem of the development of civilization. The general\nthesis maintained is that Myth arose in the savage condition prevalent\nin remote ages among the whole human race, that it remains comparatively\nunchanged among the modern rude tribes who have departed least from\nthese primitive conditions, while even higher and later grades of\ncivilization, partly by retaining its actual principles, and partly by\ncarrying on its inherited results in the form of ancestral tradition,\nhave continued it not merely in toleration but in honour.\n\nTo the human intellect in its early childlike state may be assigned the\norigin and first development of myth. It is true that learned critics,\ntaking up the study of mythology at the wrong end, have almost\nhabitually failed to appreciate its childlike ideas, conventionalized in\npoetry or disguised as chronicle. Yet the more we compare the mythic\nfancies of different nations, in order to discern the common thoughts\nwhich underlie their resemblances, the more ready we shall be to admit\nthat in our childhood we dwelt at the very gates of the realm of myth.\nIn mythology, the child is, in a deeper sense than we are apt to use the\nphrase in, father of the man. Thus, when in surveying the quaint fancies\nand wild legends of the lower tribes, we find the mythology of the world\nat once in its most distinct and most rudimentary form, we may here\nagain claim the savage as a representative of the childhood of the human\nrace. Here Ethnology and Comparative Mythology go hand in hand, and the\ndevelopment of Myth forms a consistent part of the development of\nCulture. If savage races, as the nearest modern representatives of\nprim\u00e6val culture, show in the most distinct and unchanged state the\nrudimentary mythic conceptions thence to be traced onward in the course\nof civilization, then it is reasonable for students to begin, so far as\nmay be, at the beginning. Savage mythology may be taken as a basis, and\nthen the myths of more civilized races may be displayed as compositions\nsprung from like origin, though more advanced in art. This mode of\ntreatment proves satisfactory through almost all the branches of the\nenquiry, and eminently so in investigating those most beautiful of\npoetic fictions, to which may be given the title of Nature-Myths.\n\nFirst and foremost among the causes which transfigure into myths the\nfacts of daily experience, is the belief in the animation of all nature,\nrising at its highest pitch to personification. This, no occasional or\nhypothetical action of the mind, is inextricably bound in with that\nprimitive mental state where man recognizes in every detail of his world\nthe operation of personal life and will. This doctrine of Animism will\nbe considered elsewhere as affecting philosophy and religion, but here\nwe have only to do with its bearing on mythology. To the lower tribes of\nman, sun and stars, trees and rivers, winds and clouds, become personal\nanimate creatures, leading lives conformed to human or animal analogies,\nand performing their special functions in the universe with the aid of\nlimbs like beasts or of artificial instruments like men; or what men\u2019s\neyes behold is but the instrument to be used or the material to be\nshaped, while behind it there stands some prodigious but yet half-human\ncreature, who grasps it with his hands or blows it with his breath. The\nbasis on which such ideas as these are built is not to be narrowed down\nto poetic fancy and transformed metaphor. They rest upon a broad\nphilosophy of nature, early and crude indeed, but thoughtful,\nconsistent, and quite really and seriously meant.\n\nLet us put this doctrine of universal vitality to a test of direct\nevidence, lest readers new to the subject should suppose it a modern\nphilosophical fiction, or think that if the lower races really express\nsuch a notion, they may do so only as a poetical way of talking. Even in\ncivilized countries, it makes its appearance as the child\u2019s early theory\nof the outer world, nor can we fail to see how this comes to pass. The\nfirst beings that children learn to understand something of are human\nbeings, and especially their own selves; and the first explanation of\nall events will be the human explanation, as though chairs and sticks\nand wooden horses were actuated by the same sort of personal will as\nnurses and children and kittens. Thus infants take their first step in\nmythology by contriving, like Cosette with her doll, \u2018se figurer que\nquelque chose est quelqu\u2019un;\u2019 and the way in which this childlike theory\nhas to be unlearnt in the course of education shows how primitive it is.\nEven among full-grown civilized Europeans, as Mr. Grote appositely\nremarks, \u2018The force of momentary passion will often suffice to supersede\nthe acquired habit, and even an intelligent man may be impelled in a\nmoment of agonizing pain to kick or beat the lifeless object from which\nhe has suffered.\u2019 In such matters the savage mind well represents the\nchildish stage. The wild native of Brazil would bite the stone he\nstumbled over, or the arrow that had wounded him. Such a mental\ncondition may be traced along the course of history, not merely in\nimpulsive habit, but in formally enacted law. The rude Kukis of Southern\nAsia were very scrupulous in carrying out their simple law of vengeance,\nlife for life; if a tiger killed a Kuki, his family were in disgrace\ntill they had retaliated by killing and eating this tiger, or another;\nbut further, if a man was killed by a fall from a tree, his relatives\nwould take their revenge by cutting the tree down, and scattering it in\nchips.[348] A modern king of Cochin-China, when one of his ships sailed\nbadly, used to put it in the pillory as he would any other\ncriminal.[349] In classical times, the stories of Xerxes flogging the\nHellespont and Cyrus draining the Gyndes occur as cases in point, but\none of the regular Athenian legal proceedings is a yet more striking\nrelic. A court of justice was held at the Prytaneum, to try any\ninanimate object, such as an axe or a piece of wood or stone, which had\ncaused the death of anyone without proved human agency, and this wood or\nstone, if condemned, was in solemn form cast beyond the border.[350] The\nspirit of this remarkable procedure reappears in the old English law\n(repealed within the last reign), whereby not only a beast that kills a\nman, but a cart-wheel that runs over him, or a tree that falls on him\nand kills him, is deodand, or given to God, i.e. forfeited and sold for\nthe poor: as Bracton says, \u2018Omnia quae movent ad mortem sunt Deodanda.\u2019\nDr. Reid comments on this law, declaring that its intention was not to\npunish the ox or the cart as criminal, but \u2018to inspire the people with a\nsacred regard to the life of man.\u2019[351] But his argument rather serves\nto show the worthlessness of off-hand speculations on the origin of law,\nlike his own in this matter, unaided by the indispensable evidence of\nhistory and ethnography. An example from modern folklore shows still at\nits utmost stretch this primitive fancy that inert things are alive and\nconscious. The pathetic custom of \u2018telling the bees\u2019 when the master or\nmistress of a house dies, is not unknown in our own country. But in\nGermany the idea is more fully worked out; and not only is the sad\nmessage given to every bee-hive in the garden and every beast in the\nstall, but every sack of corn must be touched and everything in the\nhouse shaken, that they may know the master is gone.[352]\n\nIt will be seen presently how Animism, the doctrine of spiritual beings,\nat once develops with and reacts upon mythic personification, in that\nearly state of the human mind which gives consistent individual life to\nphenomena that our utmost stretch of fancy only avails to personify in\nconscious metaphor. An idea of pervading life and will in nature far\noutside modern limits, a belief in personal souls animating even what we\ncall inanimate bodies, a theory of transmigration of souls as well in\nlife as after death, a sense of crowds of spiritual beings sometimes\nflitting through the air, but sometimes also inhabiting trees and rocks\nand waterfalls, and so lending their own personality to such material\nobjects\u2014all these thoughts work in mythology with such manifold\ncoincidence, as to make it hard indeed to unravel their separate\naction.[353]\n\nSuch animistic origin of nature-myths shows out very clearly in the\ngreat cosmic group of Sun, Moon, and Stars. In early philosophy\nthroughout the world, the Sun and Moon are alive and as it were human in\ntheir nature. Usually contrasted as male and female, they nevertheless\ndiffer in the sex assigned to each, as well as in their relations to one\nanother. Among the Mbocobis of South America, the Moon is a man and the\nSun his wife, and the story is told how she once fell down and an Indian\nput her up again, but she fell a second time and set the forest blazing\nin a deluge of fire.[354] To display the opposite of this idea, and at\nthe same time to illustrate the vivid fancy with which savages can\npersonify the heavenly bodies, we may read the following discussion\nconcerning eclipses, between certain Algonquin Indians and one of the\nearly Jesuit missionaries to Canada in the 17th century, Father Le\nJune:\u2014\u2018Je leur ay demand\u00e9 d\u2019o\u00f9 venoit l\u2019Eclipse de Lune et de Soleil;\nils m\u2019ont respondu que la Lune s\u2019\u00e9clipsoit ou paroissoit noire, \u00e0 cause\nqu\u2019elle tenoit son fils entre ses bras, qui empeschoit que l\u2019on ne vist\nsa clart\u00e9. Si la Lune a un fils, elle est mari\u00e9e, ou l\u2019a \u00e9t\u00e9, leur\ndis-je. O\u00fcy dea, me dirent-ils, le Soleil est son mary, qui marche tout\nle jour, et elle toute la nuict; et s\u2019il s\u2019\u00e9clipse, ou s\u2019il s\u2019obscurcit,\nc\u2019est qu\u2019il prend aussi par fois le fils qu\u2019il a eu de la Lune entre ses\nbras. O\u00fcy, mais ny la Lune ny le Soleil n\u2019ont point de bras, leur\ndisois-je. Tu n\u2019as point d\u2019esprit; ils tiennent tousiours leurs arcs\nband\u00e9s deuant eux, voil\u00e0 pourquoy leurs bras ne paroissent point. Et sur\nqui veulent-ils tirer? H\u00e9 qu\u2019en scauons nous?\u2019[355] A mythologically\nimportant legend of the same race, the Ottawa story of Iosco, describes\nSun and Moon as brother and sister. Two Indians, it is said, sprang\nthrough a chasm in the sky, and found themselves in a pleasant moonlit\nland; there they saw the Moon approaching as from behind a hill, they\nknew her at the first sight, she was an aged woman with white face and\npleasing air; speaking kindly to them, she led them to her brother the\nSun, and he carried them with him in his course and sent them home with\npromises of happy life.[356] As the Egyptian Osiris and Isis were at\nonce brother and sister, and husband and wife, so it was with the\nPeruvian Sun and Moon, Ynti and Quilla, father and mother of the Incas,\nwhose sister-marriage thus had in their religion at once a meaning and a\njustification.[357] The myths of other countries, where such relations\nof sex may not appear, carry on the same lifelike personification in\ntelling the ever-reiterated, never tedious tale of day and night. Thus\nto the Mexicans it was an ancient hero who, when the old sun was burnt\nout, and had left the world in darkness, sprang into a huge fire,\ndescended into the shades below, and arose deified and glorious in the\neast as Tonatiuh the Sun. After him there leapt in another hero, but now\nthe fire had grown dim, and he arose only in milder radiance as Metztli\nthe Moon.[358]\n\nIf it be objected that all this may be mere expressive form of speech,\nlike a modern poet\u2019s fanciful metaphor, there is evidence which no such\nobjection can stand against. When the Aleutians thought that if anyone\ngave offence to the moon, he would fling down stones on the offender and\nkill him,[359] or when the moon came down to an Indian squaw, appearing\nin the form of a beautiful woman with a child in her arms, and demanding\nan offering of tobacco and fur robes,[360] what conceptions of personal\nlife could be more distinct than these? When the Apache Indian pointed\nto the sky and asked the white man, \u2018Do you not believe that God, this\nSun (que Dios, este Sol), sees what we do and punishes us when it is\nevil?\u2019 it is impossible to say that this savage was talking in\nrhetorical simile.[361] There was something in the Homeric contemplation\nof the living personal H\u00ealios, that was more and deeper than metaphor.\nEven in far later ages, we may read of the outcry that arose in Greece\nagainst the astronomers, those blasphemous materialists who denied, not\nthe divinity only, but the very personality of the sun, and declared him\na huge hot ball. Later again, how vividly Tacitus brings to view the old\npersonification dying into simile among the Romans, in contrast with its\nstill enduring religious vigour among the German nations, in the record\nof Boiocalcus pleading before the Roman legate that his tribe should not\nbe driven from their lands. Looking toward the sun, and calling on the\nother heavenly bodies as though, says the historian, they had been there\npresent, the German chief demanded of them if it were their will to look\ndown upon a vacant soil? (Solem deinde respiciens, et caetera sidera\nvocans, quasi coram interrogabat, vellentne contueri inane solum?)[362]\n\nSo it is with the stars. Savage mythology contains many a story of them,\nagreeing through all other difference in attributing to them animate\nlife. They are not merely talked of in fancied personality, but personal\naction is attributed to them, or they are even declared once to have\nlived on earth. The natives of Australia not only say the stars in\nOrion\u2019s belt and scabbard are young men dancing a corroboree; they\ndeclare that Jupiter, whom they call \u2018Foot of Day\u2019 (Ginabong-Bearp), was\na chief among the Old Spirits, that ancient race who were translated to\nheaven before man came on earth.[363] The Esquimaux did not stop short\nat calling the stars of Orion\u2019s belt the Lost Ones, and telling a tale\nof their being seal-hunters who missed their way home; but they\ndistinctly held that the stars were in old times men and animals, before\nthey went up into the sky.[364] So the North American Indians had more\nthan superficial meaning in calling the Pleiades the Dancers, and the\nmorning-star the Day-bringer; for among them stories are told like that\nof the Iowas, of the star that an Indian had long gazed upon in\nchildhood, and who came down and talked with him when he was once out\nhunting, weary and luckless, and led him to a place where there was much\ngame.[365] The Kasia of Bengal declare that the stars were once men:\nthey climbed to the top of a tree (of course the great heaven-tree of\nthe mythology of so many lands), but others below cut the trunk and left\nthem up there in the branches.[366] With such savage conceptions as\nguides, the original meaning in the familiar classic personification of\nstars can scarcely be doubted. The explicit doctrine of the animation of\nstars is to be traced through past centuries, and down to our own.\nOrigen declares that the stars are animate and rational, moved with such\norder and reason as it would be absurd to say irrational creatures could\nfulfil. Pamphilius, in his apology for this Father, lays it down that\nwhereas some have held the luminaries of heaven to be animate and\nrational creatures, while others have held them mere spiritless and\nsenseless bodies, no one may call another a heretic for holding either\nview, for there is no open tradition on the subject, and even\necclesiastics have thought diversely of it.[367] It is enough to mention\nhere the well-known medi\u00e6val doctrine of star-souls and star-angels, so\nintimately mixed up with the delusions of astrology. In our own time the\ntheory of the animating souls of stars finds still here and there an\nadvocate, and De Maistre, prince and leader of reactionary philosophers,\nmaintains against modern astronomers the ancient doctrine of personal\nwill in astronomic motion, and even the theory of animated planets.[368]\n\nPoetry has so far kept alive in our minds the old animative theory of\nnature, that it is no great effort to us to fancy the waterspout a huge\ngiant or sea-monster, and to depict in what we call appropriate metaphor\nits march across the fields of ocean. But where such forms of speech are\ncurrent among less educated races, they are underlaid by a distinct\nprosaic meaning of fact. Thus the waterspouts which the Japanese see so\noften off their coasts are to them long-tailed dragons, \u2018flying up into\nthe air with a swift and violent motion,\u2019 wherefore they call them\n\u2018tatsmaki,\u2019 \u2018spouting dragons.\u2019[369] Waterspouts are believed by some\nChinese to be occasioned by the ascent and descent of the dragon;\nalthough the monster is never seen head and tail at once for clouds,\nfishermen and sea-side folk catch occasional glimpses of him ascending\nfrom the water and descending to it.[370] In the medi\u00e6val Chronicle of\nJohn of Bromton there is mentioned a wonder which happens about once a\nmonth in the Gulf of Satalia, on the Pamphylian coast. A great black\ndragon seems to come in the clouds, letting down his head into the\nwaves, while his tail seems fixed to the sky, and this dragon draws up\nthe waves to him with such avidity that even a laden ship would be taken\nup on high, so that to avoid this danger the crews ought to shout and\nbeat boards to drive the dragon off. However, concludes the chronicler,\nsome indeed say that this is not a dragon, but the sun drawing up the\nwater, which seems more true.[371] The Moslems still account for\nwaterspouts as caused by gigantic demons, such as that one described in\nthe \u2018Arabian Nights:\u2019\u2014\u2018The sea became troubled before them, and there\narose from it a black pillar, ascending towards the sky, and approaching\nthe meadow ... and behold it was a Jinnee, of gigantic stature.\u2019[372]\nThe difficulty in interpreting language like this is to know how far it\nis seriously and how far fancifully meant. But this doubt in no way goes\nagainst its original animistic meaning, of which there can be no\nquestion in the following story of a \u2018great sea-serpent\u2019 current among a\nbarbarous East African tribe. A chief of the Wanika told Dr. Krapf of a\ngreat serpent which is sometimes seen out at sea, reaching from the sea\nto the sky, and appearing especially during heavy rain. \u2018I told them,\u2019\nsays the missionary, \u2018that this was no serpent, but a waterspout.\u2019[373]\nOut of the similar phenomenon on land there has arisen a similar group\nof myths. The Moslem fancies the whirling sand-pillar of the desert to\nbe caused by the flight of an evil jinn, and the East African simply\ncalls it a demon (p\u2019hepo). To traveller after traveller who gazes on\nthese monstrous shapes gliding majestically across the desert, the\nthought occurs that the well-remembered \u2018Arabian Nights\u2019\u2019 descriptions\nrest upon personifications of the sand-pillars themselves, as the\ngigantic demons into which fancy can even now so naturally shape\nthem.[374]\n\nRude and distant tribes agree in the conception of the Rainbow as a\nliving monster. New Zealand myth, describing the battle of the Tempest\nagainst the Forest, tells how the Rainbow arose and placed his mouth\nclose to Tane-mahuta, the Father of Trees, and continued to assault him\ntill his trunk was snapt in two, and his broken branches strewed the\nground.[375] It is not only in mere nature-myth like this, but in actual\nawe-struck belief and terror, that the idea of the live Rainbow is\nworked out. The Karens of Burma say it is a spirit or demon. \u2018The\nRainbow can devour men.... When it devours a person, he dies a sudden or\nviolent death. All persons that die badly, by falls, by drowning, or by\nwild beasts, die because the Rainbow has devoured their ka-la, or\nspirit. On devouring persons it becomes thirsty and comes down to drink,\nwhen it is seen in the sky drinking water. Therefore when people see the\nRainbow, they say, \u201cThe Rainbow has come to drink water. Look out, some\none or other will die violently by an evil death.\u201d If children are\nplaying, their parents will say to them, \u201cThe Rainbow has come down to\ndrink. Play no more, lest some accident should happen to you.\u201d And after\nthe Rainbow has been seen, if any fatal accident happens to anyone, it\nis said the Rainbow has devoured him.\u2019[376] The Zulu ideas correspond in\na curious way with these. The Rainbow lives with a snake, that is, where\nit is there is also a snake; or it is like a sheep, and dwells in a\npool. When it touches the earth, it is drinking at a pool. Men are\nafraid to wash in a large pool; they say there is a Rainbow in it, and\nif a man goes in, it catches and eats him. The Rainbow, coming out of a\nriver or pool and resting on the ground, poisons men whom it meets,\naffecting them with eruptions. Men say, \u2018The Rainbow is disease. If it\nrests on a man, something will happen to him.\u2019[377] Lastly in Dahome,\nDanh the Heavenly Snake, which makes the Popo beads and confers wealth\non man, is the Rainbow.[378]\n\nTo the theory of Animism belong those endless tales which all nations\ntell of the presiding genii of nature, the spirits of cliffs, wells,\nwaterfalls, volcanoes, the elves and wood nymphs seen at times by human\neyes when wandering by moonlight or assembled at their fairy festivals.\nSuch beings may personify the natural objects they belong to, as when,\nin a North American tale, the guardian spirit of waterfalls rushes\nthrough the lodge as a raging current, bearing rocks and trees along in\nits tremendous course, and then the guardian spirit of the islands of\nLake Superior enters in the guise of rolling waves covered with\nsilver-sparkling foam.[379] Or they may be guiding and power-giving\nspirits of nature, like the spirit Fugamu, whose work is the cataract of\nthe Nguyai, and who still wanders night and day around it, though the\nnegroes who tell of him can no longer see his bodily form.[380] The\nbelief prevailing through the lower culture that the diseases which vex\nmankind are brought by individual personal spirits, is one which has\nproduced striking examples of mythic development. Thus in Burma the\nKaren lives in terror of the mad \u2018la,\u2019 the epileptic \u2018la,\u2019 and the rest\nof the seven evil demons who go about seeking his life; and it is with a\nfancy not many degrees removed from this early stage of thought that the\nPersian sees in bodily shape the apparition of Al, the scarlet fever:\u2014\n\n             \u2018Would you know Al? she seems a blushing maid,\n             With locks of flame and cheeks all rosy red.\u2019[381]\n\nIt is with this deep old spiritualistic belief clearly in view that the\nghastly tales are to be read where pestilence and death come on their\nerrand in weird human shape. To the mind of the Israelite, death and\npestilence took the personal form of the destroying angel who smote the\ndoomed.[382] When the great plague raged in Justinian\u2019s time, men saw on\nthe sea brazen barks whose crews were black and headless men, and where\nthey landed, the pestilence broke out.[383] When the plague fell on Rome\nin Gregory\u2019s time, the saint rising from prayer saw Michael standing\nwith his bloody sword on Hadrian\u2019s castle\u2014the archangel stands there yet\nin bronze, giving the old fort its newer name of the Castle of St.\nAngelo. Among a whole group of stories of the pestilence seen in\npersonal shape travelling to and fro in the land, perhaps there is none\nmore vivid than this Slavonic one. \u2018There sat a Russian under a\nlarch-tree, and the sunshine glared like fire. He saw something coming\nfrom afar; he looked again\u2014it was the Pest-maiden, huge of stature, all\nshrouded in linen, striding towards him. He would have fled in terror,\nbut the form grasped him with her long outstretched hand. \u201cKnowest thou\nthe Pest?\u201d she said; \u201cI am she. Take me on thy shoulders and carry me\nthrough all Russia; miss no village, no town, for I must visit all. But\nfear not for thyself, thou shalt be safe amid the dying.\u201d Clinging with\nher long hands, she clambered on the peasant\u2019s back; he stepped onward,\nsaw the form above him as he went, but felt no burden. First he bore her\nto the towns; they found there joyous dance and song; but the form waved\nher linen shroud, and joy and mirth were gone. As the wretched man\nlooked round, he saw mourning, he heard the tolling of the bells, there\ncame funeral processions, the graves could not hold the dead. He passed\non, and coming near each village heard the shriek of the dying, saw all\nfaces white in the desolate houses. But high on the hill stands his own\nhamlet: his wife, his little children are there, and the aged parents,\nand his heart bleeds as he draws near. With strong gripe he holds the\nmaiden fast, and plunges with her beneath the waves. He sank: she rose\nagain, but she quailed before a heart so fearless, and fled far away to\nthe forest and the mountain.\u2019[384]\n\nYet, if mythology be surveyed in a more comprehensive view, it is seen\nthat its animistic development falls within a broader generalization\nstill. The explanation of the course and change of nature, as caused by\nlife such as the life of the thinking man who gazes on it, is but a part\nof a far wider mental process. It belongs to that great doctrine of\nanalogy, from which we have gained so much of our apprehension of the\nworld around us. Distrusted as it now is by severer science for its\nmisleading results, analogy is still to us a chief means of discovery\nand illustration, while in earlier grades of education its influence was\nall but paramount. Analogies which are but fancy to us were to men of\npast ages reality. They could see the flame licking its yet undevoured\nprey with tongues of fire, or the serpent gliding along the waving sword\nfrom hilt to point; they could feel a live creature gnawing within their\nbodies in the pangs of hunger; they heard the voices of the hill-dwarfs\nanswering in the echo, and the chariot of the Heaven-god rattling in\nthunder over the solid firmament. Men to whom these were living thoughts\nhad no need of the schoolmaster and his rules of composition, his\ninjunctions to use metaphor cautiously, and to take continual care to\nmake all similes consistent. The similes of the old bards and orators\nwere consistent, because they seemed to see and hear and feel them: what\nwe call poetry was to them real life, not as to the modern versemaker a\nmasquerade of gods and heroes, shepherds and shepherdesses, stage\nheroines and philosophic savages in paint and feathers. It was with a\nfar deeper consciousness that the circumstance of nature was worked out\nin endless imaginative detail in ancient days and among uncultured\nraces.\n\nUpon the sky above the hill-country of Orissa, Pidzu Pennu, the Rain-god\nof the Khonds, rests as he pours down the showers through his\nsieve.[385] Over Peru there stands a princess with a vase of rain, and\nwhen her brother strikes the pitcher, men hear the shock in thunder and\nsee the flash in lightning.[386] To the old Greeks the rainbow seemed\nstretched down by Jove from heaven, a purple sign of war and tempest, or\nit was the personal Iris, messenger between gods and men.[387] To the\nSouth Sea Islander it was the heaven-ladder where heroes of old climbed\nup and down;[388] and so to the Scandinavian it was Bifr\u00f6st, the\ntrembling bridge, timbered of three hues and stretched from sky to\nearth; while in German folk-lore it is the bridge where the souls of the\njust are led by their guardian angels across to paradise.[389] As the\nIsraelite called it the bow of Jehovah in the clouds, it is to the Hindu\nthe bow of Rama,[390] and to the Finn the bow of Tiermes the Thunderer,\nwho slays with it the sorcerers that hunt after men\u2019s lives;[391] it is\nimagined, moreover, as a gold-embroidered scarf, a head-dress of\nfeathers, St. Bernard\u2019s crown, or the sickle of an Esthonian deity.[392]\nAnd yet through all such endless varieties of mythic conception, there\nruns one main principle, the evident suggestion and analogy of nature.\nIt has been said of the savages of North America, that \u2018there is always\nsomething actual and physical to ground an Indian fancy on.\u2019[393] The\nsaying goes too far, but within limits it is emphatically true, not of\nNorth American Indians alone, but of mankind.\n\nSuch resemblances as have just been displayed thrust themselves directly\non the mind, without any necessary intervention of words. Deep as\nlanguage lies in our mental life, the direct comparison of object with\nobject, and action with action, lies yet deeper. The myth-maker\u2019s mind\nshows forth even among the deaf-and-dumb, who work out just such\nanalogies of nature in their wordless thought. Again and again they have\nbeen found to suppose themselves taught by their guardians to worship\nand pray to sun, moon, and stars, as personal creatures. Others have\ndescribed their early thoughts of the heavenly bodies as analogous to\nthings within their reach, one fancying the moon made like a dumpling\nand rolled over the tree-tops like a marble across a table, and the\nstars cut out with great scissors and stuck against the sky, while\nanother supposed the moon a furnace and the stars fire-grates, which the\npeople above the firmament light up as we kindle fires.[394] Now the\nmythology of mankind at large is full of conceptions of nature like\nthese, and to assume for them no deeper original source than\nmetaphorical phrases, would be to ignore one of the great transitions of\nour intellectual history.\n\nLanguage, there is no doubt, has had a great share in the formation of\nmyth. The mere fact of its individualizing in words such notions as\nwinter and summer, cold and heat, war and peace, vice and virtue, gives\nthe myth-maker the means of imagining these thoughts as personal beings.\nLanguage not only acts in thorough unison with the imagination whose\nproduct it expresses, but it goes on producing of itself, and thus, by\nthe side of the mythic conceptions in which language has followed\nimagination, we have others in which language has led, and imagination\nhas followed in the track. These two actions coincide too closely for\ntheir effects to be thoroughly separated, but they should be\ndistinguished as far as possible. For myself, I am disposed to think\n(differing here in some measure from Professor Max M\u00fcller\u2019s view of the\nsubject) that the mythology of the lower races rests especially on a\nbasis of real and sensible analogy, and that the great expansion of\nverbal metaphor into myth belongs to more advanced periods of\ncivilization. In a word, I take material myth to be the primary, and\nverbal myth to be the secondary formation. But whether this opinion be\nhistorically sound or not, the difference in nature between myth founded\non fact and myth founded on word is sufficiently manifest. The want of\nreality in verbal metaphor cannot be effectually hidden by the utmost\nstretch of imagination. In spite of this essential weakness, however,\nthe habit of realizing everything that words can describe is one which\nhas grown and flourished in the world. Descriptive names become\npersonal, the notion of personality stretches to take in even the most\nabstract notions to which a name may be applied, and realized name,\nepithet, and metaphor pass into interminable mythic growths by the\nprocess which Max M\u00fcller has so aptly characterized as \u2018a disease of\nlanguage.\u2019 It would be difficult indeed to define the exact thought\nlying at the root of every mythic conception, but in easy cases the\ncourse of formation can be quite well followed. North American tribes\nhave personified Nipin\u016bkhe and Pip\u016bn\u016bkhe, the beings who bring the\nspring (nipin) and the winter (pip\u016bn); Nipin\u016bkhe brings the heat and\nbirds and verdure, Pip\u016bn\u016bkhe ravages with his cold winds, his ice and\nsnow; one comes as the other goes, and between them they divide the\nworld.[395] Just such personification as this furnishes the staple of\nendless nature-metaphor in our own European poetry. In the springtime it\ncomes to be said that May has conquered Winter, his gate is open, he has\nsent letters before him to tell the fruit that he is coming, his tent is\npitched, he brings the woods their summer clothing. Thus, when Night is\npersonified, we see how it comes to pass that Day is her son, and how\neach in a heavenly chariot drives round the world. To minds in this\nmythologic stage, the Curse becomes a personal being, hovering in space\ntill it can light upon its victim; Time and Nature arise as real\nentities; Fate and Fortune become personal arbiters of our lives. But at\nlast, as the change of meaning goes on, thoughts that once had a more\nreal sense fade into mere poetic forms of speech. We have but to compare\nthe effect of ancient and modern personification on our own minds, to\nunderstand something of what has happened in the interval. Milton may be\nconsistent, classical, majestic, when he tells how Sin and Death sat\nwithin the gates of hell, and how they built their bridge of length\nprodigious across the deep abyss to earth. Yet such descriptions leave\nbut scant sense of meaning on modern minds, and we are apt to say, as we\nmight of some counterfeit bronze from Naples, \u2018For a sham antique how\ncleverly it is done.\u2019 Entering into the mind of the old Norseman, we\nguess how much more of meaning than the cleverest modern imitation can\ncarry, lay in his pictures of Hel, the death-goddess, stern and grim and\nlivid, dwelling in her high and strong-barred house, and keeping in her\nnine worlds the souls of the departed; Hunger is her dish, Famine is her\nknife, Care is her bed, and Misery her curtain. When such old material\ndescriptions are transferred to modern times, in spite of all the\naccuracy of reproduction their spirit is quite changed. The story of the\nmonk who displayed among his relics the garments of St. Faith is to us\nonly a jest; and we call it quaint humour when Charles Lamb, falling old\nand infirm, once wrote to a friend, \u2018My bed-fellows are Cough and Cramp;\nwe sleep three in a bed.\u2019 Perhaps we need not appreciate the drollery\nany the less for seeing in it at once a consequence and a record of a\npast intellectual life.\n\nThe distinction of grammatical gender is a process intimately connected\nwith the formation of myths. Grammatical gender is of two kinds. What\nmay be called sexual gender is familiar to all classically-educated\nEnglishmen, though their mother tongue has mostly lost its traces. Thus\nin Latin not only are such words as _homo_ and _femina_ classed\nnaturally as masculine and feminine, but such words as _pes_ and\n_gladius_ are made masculine, and _biga_ and _navis_ feminine, and the\nsame distinction is actually drawn between such abstractions as _honos_\nand _fides_. That sexless objects and ideas should thus be classed as\nmale and female, in spite of a new gender\u2014the neuter or \u2018neither\u2019\ngender\u2014having been defined, seems in part explained by considering this\nlatter to have been of later formation, and the original Indo-European\ngenders to have been only masculine and feminine, as is actually the\ncase in Hebrew. Though the practice of attributing sex to objects that\nhave none is not easy to explain in detail, yet there seems nothing\nmysterious in its principles, to judge from one at least of its main\nideas, which is still quite intelligible. Language makes an admirably\nappropriate distinction between strong and weak, stern and gentle, rough\nand delicate, when it contrasts them as male and female. It is possible\nto understand even such fancies as those which Pietro della Valle\ndescribes among the medi\u00e6val Persians, distinguishing between male and\nfemale, that is to say, practically between robust and tender, even in\nsuch things as food and cloth, air and water, and prescribing their\nproper use accordingly.[396] And no phrase could be more plain and\nforcible than that of the Dayaks of Borneo, who say of a heavy downpour\nof rain, \u2018ujatn arai, \u2018sa!\u2019\u2014\u2018a _he_ rain this!\u2019[397] Difficult as it may\nbe to decide how far objects and thoughts were classed in language as\nmale and female because they were personified, and how far they were\npersonified because they were classed as male and female, it is evident\nat any rate that these two processes fit together and promote each\nother.[398]\n\nMoreover, in studying languages which lie beyond the range of common\nEuropean scholarship, it is found that the theory of grammatical gender\nmust be extended into a wider field. The Dravidian languages of South\nIndia make the interesting distinction between a \u2018high-caste or major\ngender,\u2019 which includes rational beings, i.e. deities and men, and a\n\u2018caste-less or minor gender,\u2019 which includes irrational objects, whether\nliving animals or lifeless things.[399] The distinction between an\nanimate and an inanimate gender appears with especial import in a family\nof North American Indian languages, the Algonquin. Here not only do all\nanimals belong to the animate gender, but also the sun, moon, and stars,\nthunder and lightning, as being personified creatures. The animate\ngender, moreover, includes not only trees and fruits, but certain\nexceptional lifeless objects which appear to owe this distinction to\ntheir special sanctity or power; such are the stone which serves as the\naltar of sacrifice to the manitus, the bow, the eagle\u2019s feather, the\nkettle, tobacco-pipe, drum, and wampum. Where the whole animal is\nanimate, parts of its body considered separately may be inanimate\u2014hand\nor foot, beak or wing. Yet even here, for special reasons, special\nobjects are treated as of animate gender; such are the eagle\u2019s talons,\nthe bear\u2019s claws, the beaver\u2019s castor, the man\u2019s nails, and other\nobjects for which there is claimed a peculiar or mystic power.[400] If\nto anyone it seems surprising that savage thought should be steeped\nthrough and through in mythology, let him consider the meaning that is\ninvolved in a grammar of nature like this. Such a language is the very\nreflexion of a mythic world.\n\nThere is yet another way in which language and mythology can act and\nre-act on one another. Even we, with our blunted mythologic sense,\ncannot give an individual name to a lifeless object, such as a boat or a\nweapon, without in the very act imagining for it something of a personal\nnature. Among nations whose mythic conceptions have remained in full\nvigour, this action may be yet more vivid. Perhaps very low savages may\nnot be apt to name their implements or their canoes as though they were\nlive people, but races a few stages above them show the habit in\nperfection. Among the Zulus we hear of names for clubs, Igumgehle or\nGlutton, U-nothlola-mazibuko or He-who-watches-the-fords; among names\nfor assagais are Imbubuzi or Groan-causer, U-silo-si-lambile or Hungry\nLeopard, and the weapon being also used as an implement, a certain\nassagai bears the peaceful name of U-simbela-banta-bami,\nHe-digs-up-for-my-children.[401] A similar custom prevailed among the\nNew Zealanders. The traditions of their ancestral migrations tell how\nNgahue made from his jasper stone those two sharp axes whose names were\nTutauru and Hauhau-te-rangi; how with these axes were shaped the canoes\nArawa and Tainui; how the two stone anchors of Te Arawa were\ncalled Toka-parore or Wrystone, and Tu-te-rangi-haruru or\nLike-to-the-roaring-sky. These legends do not break off in a remote\npast, but carry on a chronicle which reaches into modern times. It is\nonly lately, the Maoris say, that the famous axe Tutauru was lost, and\nas for the ear-ornament named Kaukau-matua, which was made from a chip\nof the same stone, they declare that it was not lost till 1846, when its\nowner, Te Heuheu, perished in a landslip.[402] Up from this savage level\nthe same childlike habit of giving personal names to lifeless objects\nmay be traced, as we read of Thor\u2019s hammer, Mi\u00f6lnir, whom the giants\nknow as he comes flying through the air, or of Arthur\u2019s brand,\nExcalibur, caught by the arm clothed in white samite when Sir Bedivere\nflung him back into the lake, or of the Cid\u2019s mighty sword Tizona, the\nFirebrand, whom he vowed to bury in his own breast were she overcome\nthrough cowardice of his.\n\nThe teachings of a childlike prim\u00e6val philosophy ascribing personal life\nto nature at large, and the early tyranny of speech over the human mind,\nhave thus been two great and, perhaps, greatest agents in mythologic\ndevelopment. Other causes, too, have been at work, which will be noticed\nin connexion with special legendary groups, and a full list, could it be\ndrawn up, might include as contributories many other intellectual\nactions. It must be thoroughly understood, however, that such\ninvestigation of the processes of myth-formation demands a lively sense\nof the state of men\u2019s minds in the mythologic period. When the Russians\nin Siberia listened to the talk of the rude Kirgis, they stood amazed at\nthe barbarians\u2019 ceaseless flow of poetic improvisation, and exclaimed,\n\u2018Whatever these people see gives birth to fancies!\u2019 Just so the\ncivilized European may contrast his own stiff orderly prosaic thought\nwith the wild shifting poetry and legend of the old myth-maker, and may\nsay of him that everything he saw gave birth to fancy. Wanting the power\nof transporting himself into this imaginative atmosphere, the student\noccupied with the analysis of the mythic world may fail so pitiably in\nconceiving its depth and intensity of meaning, as to convert it into\nstupid fiction. Those can see more justly who have the poet\u2019s gift of\nthrowing their minds back into the world\u2019s older life, like the actor\nwho for a moment can forget himself and become what he pretends to be.\nWordsworth, that \u2018modern ancient,\u2019 as Max M\u00fcller has so well called him,\ncould write of Storm and Winter, or of the naked Sun climbing the sky,\nas though he were some Vedic poet at the head-spring of his race,\n\u2018seeing\u2019 with his mind\u2019s eye a mythic hymn to Agni or Varuna. Fully to\nunderstand an old-world myth needs not evidence and argument alone, but\ndeep poetic feeling.\n\nYet such of us as share but very little in this rare gift, may make\nshift to let evidence in some measure stand in its stead. In the poetic\nstage of thought we may see that ideal conceptions once shaped in the\nmind must have assumed some such reality to grown-up men and women as\nthey still do to children. I have never forgotten the vividness with\nwhich, as a child, I fancied I might look through a great telescope, and\nsee the constellations stand round the sky, red, green, and yellow, as I\nhad just been shown them on the celestial globe. The intensity of mythic\nfancy may be brought even more nearly home to our minds by comparing it\nwith the morbid subjectivity of illness. Among the lower races, and high\nabove their level, morbid ecstasy brought on by meditation, fasting,\nnarcotics, excitement, or disease, is a state common and held in honour\namong the very classes specially concerned with mythic idealism, and\nunder its influence the barriers between sensation and imagination break\nutterly away. A North American Indian prophetess once related the story\nof her first vision: At her solitary fast at womanhood she fell into an\necstasy, and at the call of the spirits she went up to heaven by the\npath that leads to the opening of the sky; there she heard a voice, and,\nstanding still, saw the figure of a man standing near the path, whose\nhead was surrounded by a brilliant halo, and his breast was covered with\nsquares; he said, \u2018Look at me, my name is Oshauwauegeeghick, the Bright\nBlue Sky!\u2019 Recording her experience afterwards in the rude\npicture-writing of her race, she painted this glorious spirit with the\nhieroglyphic horns of power and the brilliant halo round his head.[403]\nWe know enough of the Indian pictographs to guess how a fancy with these\nfamiliar details of the picture-language came into the poor excited\ncreature\u2019s mind; but how far is our cold analysis from her utter belief\nthat in vision she had really seen this bright being, this Red Indian\nZeus. Far from being an isolated case, this is scarcely more than a fair\nexample of the rule that any idea shaped and made current by mythic\nfancy, may at once acquire all the definiteness of fact. Even if to the\nfirst shaper it be no more than lively imagination, yet when it comes to\nbe embodied in words and to pass from house to house, those who hear it\nbecome capable of the most intense belief that it may be seen in\nmaterial shape, that it has been seen, that they themselves have seen\nit. The South African who believes in a god with a crooked leg sees him\nwith a crooked leg in dreams and visions.[404] In the time of Tacitus it\nwas said, with a more poetic imagination, that in the far north of\nScandinavia men might see the very forms of the gods and the rays\nstreaming from their heads.[405] In the 6th century the famed Nile-god\nmight still be seen, in gigantic human form, rising waist-high from the\nwaters of his river.[406] Want of originality indeed seems one of the\nmost remarkable features in the visions of mystics. The stiff Madonnas\nwith their crowns and petticoats still transfer themselves from the\npictures on cottage walls to appear in spiritual personality to peasant\nvisionaries, as the saints who stood in vision before ecstatic monks of\nold were to be known by their conventional pictorial attributes. When\nthe devil with horns, hoofs, and tail had once become a fixed image in\nthe popular mind, of course men saw him in this conventional shape. So\nreal had St. Anthony\u2019s satyr-demon become to men\u2019s opinion, that there\nis a grave 13th century account of the mummy of such a devil being\nexhibited at Alexandria; and it is not fifteen years back from the\npresent time that there was a story current at Teignmouth of a devil\nwalking up the walls of the houses, and leaving his fiendish backward\nfootprints in the snow. Nor is it vision alone that is concerned with\nthe delusive realization of the ideal; there is, as it were, a\nconspiracy of all the senses to give it proof. To take a striking\ninstance: there is an irritating herpetic disease which gradually\nencircles the body as with a girdle, whence its English name of the\n_shingles_ (Latin, _cingulum_). By an imagination not difficult to\nunderstand, this disease is attributed to a sort of coiling snake; and I\nremember a case in Cornwall where a girl\u2019s family waited in great fear\nto see if the creature would stretch all round her, the belief being\nthat if the snake\u2019s head and tail met, the patient would die. But a yet\nfuller meaning of this fantastic notion is brought out in an account by\nDr. Bastian of a physician who suffered in a painful disease, as though\na snake were twined round him, and in whose mind this idea reached such\nreality that in moments of excessive pain he could see the snake and\ntouch its rough scales with his hand.\n\nThe relation of morbid imagination to myth is peculiarly well instanced\nin the history of a widespread belief, extending through savage,\nbarbaric, classic, oriental, and medi\u00e6val life, and surviving to this\nday in European superstition. This belief, which may be conveniently\ncalled the Doctrine of Werewolves, is that certain men, by natural gift\nor magic art, can turn for a time into ravening wild beasts. The origin\nof this idea is by no means sufficiently explained. What we are\nespecially concerned with is the fact of its prevalence in the world. It\nmay be noticed that such a notion is quite consistent with the animistic\ntheory that a man\u2019s soul may go out of his body and enter that of a\nbeast or bird, and also with the opinion that men may be transformed\ninto animals; both these ideas having an important place in the belief\nof mankind, from savagery onward. The doctrine of werewolves is\nsubstantially that of a temporary metempsychosis or metamorphosis. Now\nit really occurs that, in various forms of mental disease, patients\nprowl shyly, long to bite and destroy mankind, and even fancy themselves\ntransformed into wild beasts. Belief in the possibility of such\ntransformation may have been the very suggesting cause which led the\npatient to imagine it taking place in his own person. But at any rate\nsuch insane delusions do occur, and physicians apply to them the\nmythologic term of lycanthropy. The belief in men being werewolves,\nman-tigers, and the like, may thus have the strong support of the very\nwitnesses who believe themselves to be such creatures. Moreover,\nprofessional sorcerers have taken up the idea, as they do any morbid\ndelusion, and pretend to turn themselves and others into beasts by magic\nart. Through the mass of ethnographic details relating to this subject,\nthere is manifest a remarkable uniformity of principle.\n\nAmong the non-Aryan indigenes of India, the tribes of the Garo Hills\ndescribe as \u2018transformation into a tiger\u2019 a kind of temporary madness,\napparently of the nature of delirium tremens, in which the patient walks\nlike a tiger, shunning society.[407] The Khonds of Orissa say that some\namong them have the art of \u2018mleepa,\u2019 and by the aid of a god become\n\u2018mleepa\u2019 tigers for the purpose of killing enemies, one of the man\u2019s\nfour souls going out to animate the bestial form. Natural tigers, say\nthe Khonds, kill game to benefit men, who find it half devoured and\nshare it, whereas man-killing tigers are either incarnations of the\nwrathful Earth-goddess, or they are transformed men.[408] Thus the\nnotion of man-tigers serves, as similar notions do elsewhere, to account\nfor the fact that certain individual wild beasts show a peculiar\nhostility to man. Among the Ho of Singbhoom it is related, as an example\nof similar belief, that a man named Mora saw his wife killed by a tiger,\nand followed the beast till it led him to the house of a man named\nPoosa. Telling Poosa\u2019s relatives of what had occurred, they replied that\nthey were aware that he had the power of becoming a tiger, and\naccordingly they brought him out bound, and Mora deliberately killed\nhim. Inquisition being made by the authorities, the family deposed, in\nexplanation of their belief, that Poosa had one night devoured an entire\ngoat, roaring like a tiger whilst eating it, and that on another\noccasion he told his friends he had a longing to eat a particular\nbullock, and that very night that very bullock was killed and devoured\nby a tiger.[409] South-eastern Asia is not less familiar with the idea\nof sorcerers turning into man-tigers and wandering after prey; thus the\nJakuns of the Malay Peninsula believe that when a man becomes a tiger to\nrevenge himself on his enemies, the transformation happens just before\nhe springs, and has been seen to take place.[410]\n\nHow vividly the imagination of an excited tribe, once inoculated with a\nbelief like this, can realize it into an event, is graphically told by\nDobrizhoffer among the Abipones of South America. When a sorcerer, to\nget the better of an enemy, threatens to change himself into a tiger and\ntear his tribesmen to pieces, no sooner does he begin to roar, than all\nthe neighbours fly to a distance; but still they hear the feigned\nsounds. \u2018Alas!\u2019 they cry, \u2018his whole body is beginning to be covered\nwith tiger-spots!\u2019 \u2018Look, his nails are growing!\u2019 the fear-struck women\nexclaim, although they cannot see the rogue, who is concealed within his\ntent, but distracted fear presents things to their eyes which have no\nreal existence. \u2018You daily kill tigers in the plain without dread,\u2019 said\nthe missionary; \u2018why then should you weakly fear a false imaginary tiger\nin the town?\u2019 \u2018You fathers don\u2019t understand these matters,\u2019 they reply\nwith a smile. \u2018We never fear, but kill tigers in the plain, because we\ncan see them. Artificial tigers we do fear, because they can neither be\nseen nor killed by us.\u2019[411] The sorcerers who induced assemblies of\ncredulous savages to believe in this monstrous imposture, were also the\nprofessional spiritualistic mediums of the tribes, whose business it was\nto hold intercourse with the spirits of the dead, causing them to appear\nvisibly, or carrying on audible dialogues with them behind a curtain.\nAfrica is especially rich in myths of man-lions, man-leopards,\nman-hy\u00e6nas. In the Kanuri language of Bornu, there is grammatically\nformed from the word \u2018bultu,\u2019 a hy\u00e6na, the verb \u2018bultungin,\u2019 meaning \u2018I\ntransform myself into a hy\u00e6na;\u2019 and the natives maintain that there is a\ntown called Kabutiloa, where every man possesses this faculty.[412] The\ntribe of Budas in Abyssinia, iron-workers and potters, are believed to\ncombine with these civilized avocations the gift of the evil eye and the\npower of turning into hy\u00e6nas, wherefore they are excluded from society\nand the Christian sacrament. In the \u2018Life of Nathaniel Pearce,\u2019 the\ntestimony of one Mr. Coffin is printed. A young Buda, his servant, came\nfor leave of absence, which was granted; but scarcely was Mr. Coffin\u2019s\nhead turned to his other servants, when some of them called out,\npointing in the direction the Buda had taken, \u2018Look, look, he is turning\nhimself into a hy\u00e6na.\u2019 Mr. Coffin instantly looked round, the young man\nhad vanished, and a large hy\u00e6na was running off at about a hundred\npaces\u2019 distance, in full light on the open plain, without tree or bush\nto intercept the view. The Buda came back next morning, and as usual\nrather affected to countenance than deny the prodigy. Coffin says,\nmoreover, that the Budas wear a peculiar gold earring, and this he has\nfrequently seen in the ears of hy\u00e6nas shot in traps, or speared by\nhimself and others; the Budas are dreaded for their magical arts, and\nthe editor of the book suggests that they put ear-rings in hy\u00e6nas\u2019 ears\nto encourage a profitable superstition.[413] Mr. Mansfield Parkyns\u2019 more\nrecent account shows how thoroughly this belief is part and parcel of\nAbyssinian spiritualism. Hysterics, lethargy, morbid insensibility to\npain, and the \u2018demoniacal possession,\u2019 in which the patient speaks in\nthe name and language of an intruding spirit, are all ascribed to the\nspiritual agency of the Budas. Among the cases described by Mr. Parkyns\nwas that of a servant-woman of his, whose illness was set down to the\ninfluence of one of these blacksmith-hy\u00e6nas, who wanted to get her out\ninto the forest and devour her. One night, a hy\u00e6na having been heard\nhowling and laughing near the village, the woman was bound hand and foot\nand closely guarded in the hut, when suddenly, the hy\u00e6na calling close\nby, her master, to his astonishment, saw her rise \u2018without her bonds\u2019\nlike a Davenport Brother, and try to escape.[414] In Ashango-land, M. Du\nChaillu tells the following suggestive story. He was informed that a\nleopard had killed two men, and many palavers were held to settle the\naffair; but this was no ordinary leopard, but a transformed man. Two of\nAkondogo\u2019s men had disappeared, and only their blood was found, so a\ngreat doctor was sent for, who said it was Akondogo\u2019s own nephew and\nheir Akosho. The lad was sent for, and when asked by the chief, answered\nthat it was truly he who had committed the murders, that he could not\nhelp it, for he had turned into a leopard, and his heart longed for\nblood, and after each deed he had turned into a man again. Akondogo\nloved the boy so much that he would not believe his confession, till\nAkosho took him to a place in the forest, where lay the mangled bodies\nof the two men, whom he had really murdered under the influence of this\nmorbid imagination. He was slowly burnt to death, all the people\nstanding by.[415]\n\nBrief mention is enough for the comparatively well-known European\nrepresentatives of these beliefs. What with the mere continuance of old\ntradition, what with the tricks of magicians, and what with cases of\npatients under delusion believing themselves to have suffered\ntransformation, of which a number are on record, the European series of\ndetails from ancient to modern ages is very complete. Virgil in the\nBucolics shows the popular opinion of his time that the arts of the\nwerewolf, the necromancer or \u2018medium,\u2019 and the witch, were different\nbranches of one craft, where he tells of M\u0153ris as turning into a wolf by\nthe use of poisonous herbs, as calling up souls from the tombs, and as\nbewitching away crops:\u2014\n\n              \u2018Has herbas, atque haec Ponto mihi lecta venena\n              Ipse dedit Moeris; nascuntur plurima Ponto.\n              His ego saepe lupum fieri, et se condere sylvis\n              Moerin, saepe animas imis excire sepulcris,\n              Atque satas ali\u00f2 vidi traducere messes.\u2019[416]\n\nOf the classic accounts, one of the most remarkable is Petronius\nArbiter\u2019s story of the transformation of a \u2018versipellis\u2019 or \u2018turnskin;\u2019\nthis contains the episode of the wolf being wounded and the man who wore\nits shape found with a similar wound, an idea not sufficiently proved to\nbelong originally to the lower races, but which becomes a familiar\nfeature in European stories of werewolves and witches. In Augustine\u2019s\ntime magicians were persuading their dupes that by means of herbs they\ncould turn them to wolves, and the use of salve for this purpose is\nmentioned at a comparatively modern date. Old Scandinavian sagas have\ntheir werewolf warriors, and shape-changers (hamramr) raging in fits of\nfurious madness. The Danes still know a man who is a werewolf by his\neyebrows meeting, and thus resembling a butterfly, the familiar type of\nthe soul, ready to fly off and enter some other body. In the last year\nof the Swedish war with Russia, the people of Kalmar said the wolves\nwhich overran the land were transformed Swedish prisoners. From\nHerodotus\u2019 legend of the Neuri who turned every year for a few days to\nwolves, we follow the idea on Slavonic ground to where Livonian\nsorcerers bathe yearly in a river and turn for twelve days to wolves;\nand widespread Slavonic superstition still declares that the wolves that\nsometimes in bitter winters dare to attack men, are themselves\n\u2018wilkolak,\u2019 men bewitched into wolf\u2019s shape. The modern Greeks instead\nof the classic \u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 adopt the Slavonic term \u03b2\u03c1\u03cd\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2 (Bulgarian\n\u2018vrkolak\u2019); it is a man who falls into a cataleptic state, while his\nsoul enters a wolf and goes ravening for blood. Modern Germany,\nespecially in the north, still keeps up the stories of wolf-girdles, and\nin December you must not \u2018talk of the wolf\u2019 by name, lest the werewolves\nhear you. Our English word \u2018werewolf,\u2019 that is \u2018man-wolf\u2019 (the\n\u2018verevulf\u2019 of Cnut\u2019s Laws), still reminds us of the old belief in our\nown country, and if it has had for centuries but little place in English\nfolklore, this has been not so much for lack of superstition, as of\nwolves. To instance the survival of the idea, transferred to another\nanimal, in the more modern witch-persecution, the following Scotch story\nmay serve. Certain witches at Thurso for a long time tormented an honest\nfellow under the usual form of cats, till one night he put them to\nflight with his broad-sword, and cut off the leg of one less nimble than\nthe rest; taking it up, to his amazement he found it to be a woman\u2019s\nleg, and next morning he discovered the old hag its owner with but one\nleg left. In France the creature has what is historically the same name\nas our \u2018werewolf;\u2019 viz. in early forms \u2018gerulphus,\u2019 \u2018garoul,\u2019 and now\npleonastically \u2018loup-garou.\u2019 The parliament of Franche-Comt\u00e9 made a law\nin 1573 to expel the werewolves; in 1598 the werewolf of Angers gave\nevidence of his hands and feet turning to wolf\u2019s claws; in 1603, in the\ncase of Jean Grenier, the judge declared lycanthropy to be an insane\ndelusion, not a crime. In 1658, a French satirical description of a\nmagician could still give the following perfect account of the\nwitch-werewolf: \u2018I teach the witches to take the form of wolves and eat\nchildren, and when anyone has cut off one of their legs (which proves to\nbe a man\u2019s arm) I forsake them when they are discovered, and leave them\nin the power of justice.\u2019 Even in our own day the idea has by no means\ndied out of the French peasant\u2019s mind. Not ten years ago in France, Mr.\nBaring-Gould found it impossible to get a guide after dark across a wild\nplace haunted by a loup-garou, an incident which led him afterwards to\nwrite his \u2018Book of Werewolves,\u2019 a monograph of this remarkable\ncombination of myth and madness.[417]\n\nIf we judged the myths of early ages by the unaided power of our modern\nfancy, we might be left unable to account for their immense effect on\nthe life and belief of mankind. But by the study of such evidence as\nthis, it becomes possible to realize a usual state of the imagination\namong ancient and savage peoples, intermediate between the conditions of\na healthy prosaic modern citizen and of a raving fanatic or a patient in\na fever-ward. A poet of our own day has still much in common with the\nminds of uncultured tribes in the mythologic stage of thought. The rude\nman\u2019s imaginations may be narrow, crude, and repulsive, while the poet\u2019s\nmore conscious fictions may be highly wrought into shapes of fresh\nartistic beauty, but both share in that sense of the reality of ideas,\nwhich fortunately or unfortunately modern education has proved so\npowerful to destroy. The change of meaning of a single word will tell\nthe history of this transition, ranging from prim\u00e6val to modern thought.\nFrom first to last, the processes of _phantasy_ have been at work; but\nwhere the savage could see _phantasms_, the civilized man has come to\namuse himself with _fancies_.\n\nFootnote 345:\n\n  Grote, \u2018History of Greece,\u2019 vol. i. chaps. ix. xi.; Pausanias viii. 2;\n  Plutarch. Theseus 1.\n\nFootnote 346:\n\n  See Banier, \u2018La Mythologie et les Fables expliqu\u00e9es par l\u2019Histoire,\u2019\n  Paris, 1738; Lempriere, \u2018Classical Dictionary,\u2019 &c.\n\nFootnote 347:\n\n  Hanusch, \u2018Slav. Myth.\u2019 p. 323; Grimm, D. M. p. 363; Latham, \u2018Descr.\n  Eth.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 448; I. J. Schmidt, \u2018Forschungen,\u2019 p. 13; J. G.\n  M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 p. 268. See also Plutarch. Parallela xxxvi.;\n  Campbell, \u2018Highland Tales,\u2019 vol. i. p. 278; Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Chips,\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 169; Tylor, \u2018Wild Men and Beast-children,\u2019 in Anthropological\n  Review, May 1863.\n\nFootnote 348:\n\n  Macrae in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. vii. p. 189.\n\nFootnote 349:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 51.\n\nFootnote 350:\n\n  Grote, vol. iii. p. 104; vol. v. p. 22; Herodot. i. 189; vii. 34;\n  Porphyr. de Abstinentia, ii. 30; Pausan. i. 28; Pollux, \u2018Onomasticon.\u2019\n\nFootnote 351:\n\n  Reid, \u2018Essays,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 113.\n\nFootnote 352:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 210.\n\nFootnote 353:\n\n  See chap. xi.\n\nFootnote 354:\n\n  D\u2019Orbigny, \u2018L\u2019Homme Am\u00e9ricain,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 102. See also De la Borde,\n  \u2018Caraibes,\u2019 p. 525.\n\nFootnote 355:\n\n  Le Jeune in \u2018Relations des J\u00e9suites dans la Nouvelle France,\u2019 1634, p.\n  26. See Charlevoix, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 170.\n\nFootnote 356:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Researches,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 54; compare \u2018Tanner\u2019s\n  Narrative,\u2019 p. 317; see also \u2018Prose Edda,\u2019 i. 11; \u2018Early Hist. of\n  Mankind,\u2019 p. 327.\n\nFootnote 357:\n\n  Prescott, \u2018Peru,\u2019 vol. i. p. 86; Garcilaso de la Vega, \u2018Comm. Real.\u2019\n  i. c. 15; iii. c. 21.\n\nFootnote 358:\n\n  Torquemada, \u2018Monarquia Indiana,\u2019 vi. 42; Clavig\u00e9ro, vol. ii. p. 9;\n  Sahagun in Kingsborough, \u2018Antiquities of Mexico.\u2019\n\nFootnote 359:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 59.\n\nFootnote 360:\n\n  Le Jeune, in \u2018Relations des J\u00e9suites dans la Nouvelle France,\u2019 1639,\n  p. 88.\n\nFootnote 361:\n\n  Froebel, \u2018Central America,\u2019 p. 490.\n\nFootnote 362:\n\n  Tac. Ann. xiii. 55.\n\nFootnote 363:\n\n  Stanbridge, in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 301.\n\nFootnote 364:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 295; Hayes, \u2018Arctic Boat Journey,\u2019 p. 254.\n\nFootnote 365:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iii. p. 276; see also De la Borde,\n  \u2018Caraibes,\u2019 p. 525.\n\nFootnote 366:\n\n  H. Yule in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 vol. xiii. (1844), p. 628.\n\nFootnote 367:\n\n  Origen, de Principiis, i. 7, 3; Pamphil. Apolog. pro Origine, ix. 84.\n\nFootnote 368:\n\n  De Maistre, \u2018Soir\u00e9es de Saint-P\u00e9tersbourg,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 210, see 184.\n\nFootnote 369:\n\n  Kaempfer, \u2018Japan,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 684.\n\nFootnote 370:\n\n  Doolittle, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 265; see Ward, \u2018Hindoos,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  140 (Indra\u2019s elephants drinking).\n\nFootnote 371:\n\n  Chron. Joh. Bromton, in \u2018Hist. Angl. Scriptores,\u2019 x. Ric. I. p. 1216.\n\nFootnote 372:\n\n  Lane, \u2018Thousand and one N.\u2019 vol. i. p. 30, 7.\n\nFootnote 373:\n\n  Krapf, \u2018Travels,\u2019 p. 198.\n\nFootnote 374:\n\n  Lane, _ibid._ pp. 30, 42; Burton, \u2018El Medinah and Meccah,\u2019 vol. ii. p.\n  69; \u2018Lake Regions,\u2019 vol. i. p. 297; J. D. Hooker, \u2018Himalayan\n  Journals,\u2019 vol. i. p. 79; Tylor, \u2018Mexico,\u2019 p. 30; Tyerman and Bennet,\n  vol. ii. p. 362. (Hindu pi\u00e7\u00e2cha = demon, whirlwind.)\n\nFootnote 375:\n\n  Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 121.\n\nFootnote 376:\n\n   Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1865, part ii. p. 217.\n\nFootnote 377:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. p. 294.\n\nFootnote 378:\n\n  Burton, \u2018Dahome,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 148; see 242.\n\nFootnote 379:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 148.\n\nFootnote 380:\n\n  Du Chaillu, \u2018Ashango-land,\u2019 p. 106.\n\nFootnote 381:\n\n  Jas. Atkinson, \u2018Customs of the Women of Persia,\u2019 p. 49.\n\nFootnote 382:\n\n  2 Sam. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xix. 35.\n\nFootnote 383:\n\n  G. S. Assemanni, \u2018Bibliotheca Orientalis,\u2019 ii. 86.\n\nFootnote 384:\n\n  Hanusch, \u2018Slav. Mythus,\u2019 p. 322. Compare Torquemada, \u2018Monarquia\n  Indiana,\u2019 i. c. 14 (Mexico); Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 197.\n\nFootnote 385:\n\n  Macpherson, \u2018India,\u2019 p. 357.\n\nFootnote 386:\n\n  Markham, \u2018Quichua Gr. and Dic.\u2019 p. 9.\n\nFootnote 387:\n\n  Welcker, \u2018Griech. G\u00f6tterl.\u2019 vol. i. p. 690.\n\nFootnote 388:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 231; Polack, \u2018New Z.\u2019 vol. i. p. 273.\n\nFootnote 389:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 694-6.\n\nFootnote 390:\n\n  Ward, \u2018Hindoos,\u2019 vol. i. p. 140.\n\nFootnote 391:\n\n  Castren, \u2018Finnische Mythologie,\u2019 pp. 48, 49.\n\nFootnote 392:\n\n  Delbr\u00fcck in Lazarus and Steinthal\u2019s Zeitschrift, vol. iii. p. 269.\n\nFootnote 393:\n\n  Schoolcraft, part iii. p. 520.\n\nFootnote 394:\n\n  Sicard, \u2018Th\u00e9orie des Signes, &c.\u2019 Paris 1808, vol. ii. p. 634;\n  \u2018Personal Recollections\u2019 by Charlotte Elizabeth, London, 1841, p. 182;\n  Dr. Orpen, \u2018The Contrast,\u2019 p. 25. Compare Meiners, vol. i. p. 42.\n\nFootnote 395:\n\n  Le Jeune, in \u2018Rel. des J\u00e9s. dans la Nouvelle France,\u2019 1634, p. 13.\n\nFootnote 396:\n\n  Pietro della Valle, \u2018Viaggi,\u2019 letter xvi.\n\nFootnote 397:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. ii. p. xxvii.\n\nFootnote 398:\n\n  See remarks on the tendency of sex-denoting language to produce myth\n  in Africa, in W. H. Bleek, \u2018Reynard the Fox in S. Afr.\u2019 p. xx.;\n  \u2018Origin of Lang.\u2019 p. xxiii.\n\nFootnote 399:\n\n  Caldwell, \u2018Comp. Gr. of Dravidian Langs.\u2019 p. 172.\n\nFootnote 400:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part ii. p. 366. For other cases see\n  especially Pott in Ersch and Gruber\u2019s \u2018Allg. Encyclop.\u2019 art.\n  \u2018Geschlecht;\u2019 also D. Forbes, \u2018Persian Gr.\u2019 p. 26; Latham, \u2018Descr.\n  Eth.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 60.\n\nFootnote 401:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Relig. of Amazulu,\u2019 p. 166.\n\nFootnote 402:\n\n  Grey, \u2018Polyn. Myth.\u2019 pp. 132, &c., 211; Shortland, \u2018Traditions of N.\n  Z.\u2019 p. 15.\n\nFootnote 403:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part i. p. 391 and pl. 55.\n\nFootnote 404:\n\n  Livingstone, \u2018S. Afr.\u2019 p. 124.\n\nFootnote 405:\n\n  Tac. Germania, 45.\n\nFootnote 406:\n\n  Maury, \u2018Magie, &c.\u2019 p. 175.\n\nFootnote 407:\n\n  Eliot in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 32.\n\nFootnote 408:\n\n  Macpherson, \u2018India,\u2019 pp. 92, 99, 108.\n\nFootnote 409:\n\n  Dalton, \u2018Kols of Chota-Nagpore\u2019 in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. vi. p. 32.\n\nFootnote 410:\n\n  J. Cameron, \u2018Malayan India,\u2019 p. 393; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i.\n  p. 119; vol. iii. pp. 261, 273; \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. vi. p. 173.\n\nFootnote 411:\n\n  Dobrizhoffer, \u2018Abipones,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 77. See J. G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer.\n  Urrelig.\u2019 p. 63; Martius, \u2018Ethn. Amer.\u2019 vol. i. p. 652; Oviedo,\n  \u2018Nicaragua,\u2019 p. 229; Piedrahita, \u2018Nuevo Reyno de Granada,\u2019 part i.\n  lib. c. 3.\n\nFootnote 412:\n\n  K\u00f6lle, \u2018Afr. Lit. and Kanuri Vocab.\u2019 p. 275.\n\nFootnote 413:\n\n  \u2018Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce\u2019 (1810-9), ed. by J. J.\n  Halls, London, 1831, vol. i. p. 286; also \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. vi. p.\n  288; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 504.\n\nFootnote 414:\n\n  Parkyns, \u2018Life in Abyssinia\u2019 (1853), vol. ii. p. 146.\n\nFootnote 415:\n\n  Du Chaillu, \u2018Ashango-land,\u2019 p. 52. For other African details, see\n  Waitz, vol. ii. p. 343; J. L. Wilson, \u2018W. Afr.\u2019 pp. 222, 365, 398;\n  Burton, \u2018E. Afr.\u2019 p. 57; Livingstone, \u2018S. Afr.\u2019 pp. 615, 642; Magyar,\n  \u2018S. Afr.\u2019 p. 136.\n\nFootnote 416:\n\n  Virg. Bucol. ecl. viii. 95.\n\nFootnote 417:\n\n  For collections of European evidence, see W. Hertz, \u2018Der Werwolf;\u2019\n  Baring-Gould, \u2018Book of Werewolves;\u2019 Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 1047; Dasent,\n  \u2018Norse Tales,\u2019 Introd. p. cxix.; Bastian, \u2018Mensch.\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 32,\n  566; Brand, \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019 vol. i. p. 312, vol. iii. p. 32; Lecky, \u2018Hist.\n  of Rationalism,\u2019 vol. i. p. 82. Particular details in Petron. Arbiter,\n  Satir. lxii.; Virgil. Eclog. viii. 97; Plin. viii. 34; Herodot. iv.\n  105; Mela ii. 1; Augustin. De Civ. Dei, xviii. 17; Hanusch, \u2018Slav.\n  Myth.\u2019 pp. 286, 320; Wuttke, \u2018Deutsche Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 118.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX.\n                        MYTHOLOGY (_continued_).\n\n    Nature-myths, their origin, canon of interpretation, preservation of\n    original sense and significant names\u2014Nature-myths of upper savage\n    races compared with related forms among barbaric and civilized\n    nations\u2014Heaven and Earth as Universal Parents\u2014Sun and Moon: Eclipse\n    and Sunset, as Hero or Maiden swallowed by Monster; Rising of Sun\n    from Sea and Descent to Under-World; Jaws of Night and Death,\n    Symplegades; Eye of Heaven, Eye of Odin and the Grai\u00e6\u2014Sun and Moon\n    as mythic civilizers\u2014Moon, her inconstancy, periodical death and\n    revival\u2014Stars, their generation\u2014Constellations, their place in\n    Mythology and Astronomy\u2014Wind and Tempest\u2014Thunder\u2014Earthquake.\n\n\nFrom laying down general principles of myth-development, we may now\nproceed to survey the class of Nature-myths, such especially as seem to\nhave their earliest source and truest meaning among the lower races of\nmankind.\n\nScience, investigating nature, discusses its facts and announces its\nlaws in technical language which is clear and accurate to trained\nstudents, but which falls only as a mystic jargon on the ears of\nbarbarians, or peasants, or children. It is to the comprehension of just\nthese simple unschooled minds that the language of poetic myth is\nspoken, so far at least as it is true poetry, and not its quaint\naffected imitation. The poet contemplates the same natural world as the\nman of science, but in his so different craft strives to render\ndifficult thought easy by making it visible and tangible, above all by\nreferring the being and movement of the world to such personal life as\nhis hearers feel within themselves, and thus working out in\nfar-stretched fancy the maxim that \u2018Man is the measure of all things.\u2019\nLet but the key be recovered to this mythic dialect, and its complex and\nshifting terms will translate themselves into reality, and show how far\nlegend, in its sympathetic fictions of war, love, crime, adventure,\nfate, is only telling the perennial story of the world\u2019s daily life. The\nmyths shaped out of those endless analogies between man and nature which\nare the soul of all poetry, into those half-human stories still so full\nto us of unfading life and beauty, are the masterpieces of an art\nbelonging rather to the past than to the present. The growth of myth has\nbeen checked by science, it is dying of weights and measures, of\nproportions and specimens\u2014it is not only dying, but half dead, and\nstudents are anatomising it. In this world one must do what one can, and\nif the moderns cannot feel myth as their forefathers did, at least they\ncan analyse it. There is a kind of intellectual frontier within which he\nmust be who will sympathise with myth, while he must be without who will\ninvestigate it, and it is our fortune that we live near this\nfrontier-line, and can go in and out. European scholars can still in a\nmeasure understand the belief of Greeks or Aztecs or Maoris in their\nnative myths, and at the same time can compare and interpret them\nwithout the scruples of men to whom such tales are history, and even\nsacred history. Moreover, were the whole human race at a uniform level\nof culture with ourselves, it would be hard to bring our minds to\nconceive of tribes in the mental state to which the early growth of\nnature-myth belongs, even as it is now hard to picture to ourselves a\ncondition of mankind lower than any that has been actually found. But\nthe various grades of existing civilization preserve the landmarks of a\nlong course of history, and there survive by millions savages and\nbarbarians whose minds still produce, in rude archaic forms, man\u2019s early\nmythic representations of nature.\n\nThose who read for the first time the dissertations of the modern school\nof mythologists, and sometimes even those who have been familiar with\nthem for years, are prone to ask, with half-incredulous appreciation of\nthe beauty and simplicity of their interpretations, can they be really\ntrue? Can so great a part of the legendary lore of classic, barbarian,\nand medi\u00e6val Europe be taken up with the everlasting depiction of Sun\nand Sky, Dawn and Gloaming, Day and Night, Summer and Winter, Cloud and\nTempest; can so many of the personages of tradition, for all their\nheroic human aspect, have their real origin in anthropomorphic myths of\nnature? Without any attempt to discuss these opinions at large, it will\nbe seen that inspection of nature-mythology from the present point of\nview tells in their favour, at least as to principle. The general theory\nthat such direct conceptions of nature as are so na\u00efvely and even baldly\nuttered in the Veda, are among the primary sources of myth, is enforced\nby evidence gained elsewhere in the world. Especially the traditions of\nsavage races display mythic conceptions of the outer world, primitive\nlike those of the ancient Indian hymns, agreeing with them in their\ngeneral character, and often remarkably corresponding in their very\nepisodes. At the same time it must be clearly understood that the truth\nof such a general principle is no warrant for all the particular\ninterpretations which mythologists claim to base upon it, for of these\nin fact many are wildly speculative, and many hopelessly unsound.\nNature-myth demands indeed a recognition of its vast importance in the\nlegendary lore of mankind, but only so far as its claim is backed by\nstrong and legitimate evidence.\n\nThe close and deep analogies between the life of nature and the life of\nman have been for ages dwelt upon by poets and philosophers, who in\nsimile or in argument have told of light and darkness, of calm and\ntempest, of birth, growth, change, decay, dissolution, renewal. But no\none-sided interpretation can be permitted to absorb into a single theory\nsuch endless many-sided correspondences as these. Rash inferences which\non the strength of mere resemblance derive episodes of myth from\nepisodes of nature must be regarded with utter mistrust, for the student\nwho has no more stringent criterion than this for his myths of sun and\nsky and dawn, will find them wherever it pleases him to seek them. It\nmay be judged by simple trial what such a method may lead to; no legend,\nno allegory, no nursery rhyme, is safe from the hermeneutics of a\nthorough-going mythologic theorist. Should he, for instance, demand as\nhis property the nursery \u2018Song of Sixpence,\u2019 his claim would be easily\nestablished: obviously the four-and-twenty blackbirds are the\nfour-and-twenty hours, and the pie that holds them is the underlying\nearth covered with the overarching sky; how true a touch of nature it is\nthat when the pie is opened, that is, when day breaks, the birds begin\nto sing; the King is the Sun, and his counting out his money is pouring\nout the sunshine, the golden shower of Danae; the Queen is the Moon, and\nher transparent honey the moonlight; the Maid is the \u2018rosy-fingered\u2019\nDawn who rises before the Sun her master, and hangs out the clouds, his\nclothes, across the sky; the particular blackbird who so tragically ends\nthe tale by snipping off her nose, is the hour of sunrise. The\ntime-honoured rhyme really wants but one thing to prove it a Sun-myth,\nthat one thing being a proof by some argument more valid than analogy.\nOr if historical characters be selected with any discretion, it is easy\nto point out the solar episodes embodied in their lives. See Cort\u00e8s\nlanding in Mexico, and seeming to the Aztecs their very Sun-priest\nQuetzalcoatl, come back from the East to renew his reign of light and\nglory; mark him deserting the wife of his youth, even as the Sun leaves\nthe Dawn, and again in later life abandoning Marina for a new bride;\nwatch his sun-like career of brilliant conquest, checkered with\nintervals of storm, and declining to a death clouded with sorrow and\ndisgrace. The life of Julius C\u00e6sar would fit as plausibly into a scheme\nof solar myth; his splendid course as in each new land he came, and saw,\nand conquered; his desertion of Cleopatra; his ordinance of the solar\nyear for men; his death at the hand of Brutus, like S\u00eefrit\u2019s death at\nthe hand of Hagen in the Nibelungen Lied; his falling pierced with many\nbleeding wounds, and shrouding himself in his cloak to die in darkness.\nOf C\u00e6sar, better than of Cassius his slayer, it might have been said in\nthe language of sun-myth:\n\n                        \u2018... O setting sun,\n                As in thy red rays thou dost sink to-night,\n                So in his red blood Cassius\u2019 day is set;\n                The sun of Rome is set!\u2019\n\nThus, in interpreting heroic legend as based on nature-myth,\ncircumstantial analogy must be very cautiously appealed to, and at any\nrate there is need of evidence more cogent than vague likenesses between\nhuman and cosmic life. Now such evidence is forthcoming at its strongest\nin a crowd of myths, whose open meaning it would be wanton incredulity\nto doubt, so little do they disguise, in name or sense, the familiar\naspects of nature which they figure as scenes of personal life. Even\nwhere the tellers of legend may have altered or forgotten its earlier\nmythic meaning, there are often sufficient grounds for an attempt to\nrestore it. In spite of change and corruption, myths are slow to lose\nall consciousness of their first origin; as for instance, classical\nliterature retained enough of meaning in the great Greek sun-myth, to\ncompel even Lempriere of the Classical Dictionary to admit that Apollo\nor Ph\u0153bus \u2018is often confounded with the sun.\u2019 For another instance, the\nGreeks had still present to their thoughts the meaning of Argos\nPanoptes, Io\u2019s hundred-eyed, all-seeing guard who was slain by Hermes\nand changed into the Peacock, for Macrobius writes as recognizing in him\nthe star-eyed heaven itself;[418] even as Indra, the Sky, is in Sanskrit\nthe \u2018thousand-eyed\u2019 (_sahasr\u00e2ksha_, _sahasranayana_). In modern times\nthe thought is found surviving or reviving in a strange region of\nlanguage: whoever it was that brought argo as a word for \u2018heaven\u2019 into\nthe Lingua Furbesca or Robbers\u2019 Jargon of Italy,[419] must have been\nthinking of the starry sky watching him like Argus with his hundred\neyes. The etymology of names, moreover, is at once the guide and\nsafeguard of the mythologist. The obvious meaning of words did much to\npreserve vestiges of plain sense in classic legend, in spite of all the\nefforts of the commentators. There was no disputing the obvious facts\nthat H\u0113lios was the Sun, and Sel\u0113n\u0113 the Moon; and as for Jove, all the\nnonsense of pseudo-history could not quite do away the idea that he was\nreally Heaven, for language continued to declare this in such\nexpressions as \u2018sub Jove frigido.\u2019 The explanation of the rape of\nPersephone, as a nature-myth of the seasons and the fruits of the earth,\ndoes not depend alone on analogy of incident, but has the very names to\nprove its reality, Zeus, H\u0113lios, D\u0113m\u0113t\u0113r\u2014Heaven, and Sun, and Mother\nEarth. Lastly, in stories of mythic beings who are the presiding genii\nof star or mountain, tree or river, or heroes and heroines actually\nmetamorphosed into such objects, personification of nature is still\nplainly evident; the poet may still as of old see Atlas bear the heavens\non his mighty shoulders, and Alpheus in impetuous course pursue the\nmaiden Arethusa.\n\nIn a study of the nature-myths of the world, it is hardly practicable to\nstart from the conceptions of the very lowest human tribes, and to work\nupwards from thence to fictions of higher growth; partly because our\ninformation is but meagre as to the beliefs of these shy and seldom\nquite intelligible folk, and partly because the legends they possess\nhave not reached that artistic and systematic shape which they attain to\namong races next higher in the scale. It therefore answers better to\ntake as a foundation the mythology of the North American Indians, the\nSouth Sea Islanders, and other low-cultured tribes who best represent in\nmodern times the early mythologic period of human history. The survey\nmay be fitly commenced by a singularly perfect and purposeful cosmic\nmyth from New Zealand.\n\nIt seems long ago and often to have come into men\u2019s minds, that the\noverarching Heaven and the all-producing Earth are, as it were, a Father\nand a Mother of the world, whose offspring are the living creatures,\nmen, and beasts, and plants. Nowhere, in the telling of this oft-told\ntale, is present nature veiled in more transparent personification,\nnowhere is the world\u2019s familiar daily life repeated with more childlike\nsimplicity as a story of long past ages, than in the legend of \u2018The\nChildren of Heaven and Earth\u2019 written down by Sir George Grey among the\nMaoris about the year 1850. From Rangi, the Heaven, and Papa, the Earth,\nit is said, sprang all men and things, but sky and earth clave together,\nand darkness rested upon them and the beings they had begotten, till at\nlast their children took counsel whether they should rend apart their\nparents, or slay them. Then Tane-mahuta, father of forests, said to his\nfive great brethren, \u2018It is better to rend them apart, and to let the\nheaven stand far above us, and the earth lie under our feet. Let the sky\nbecome as a stranger to us, but the earth remain close to us as our\nnursing mother.\u2019 So Rongo-ma-tane, god and father of the cultivated food\nof man, arose and strove to separate the heaven and the earth; he\nstruggled, but in vain, and vain too were the efforts of Tangaroa,\nfather of fish and reptiles, and of Haumia-tikitiki, father of\nwild-growing food, and of Tu-matauenga, god and father of fierce men.\nThen slow uprises Tane-mahuta, god and father of forests, and wrestles\nwith his parents, striving to part them with his hands and arms. \u2018Lo, he\npauses; his head is now firmly planted on his mother the earth, his feet\nhe raises up and rests against his father the skies, he strains his back\nand limbs with mighty effort. Now are rent apart Rangi and Papa, and\nwith cries and groans of woe they shriek aloud.... But Tane-mahuta\npauses not; far, far beneath him he presses down the earth; far, far\nabove him he thrusts up the sky.\u2019 But Tawhiri-ma-tea, father of winds\nand storms, had never consented that his mother should be torn from her\nlord, and now there arose in his breast a fierce desire to war against\nhis brethren. So the Storm-god rose and followed his father to the\nrealms above, hurrying to the sheltered hollows of the boundless skies,\nto hide and cling and nestle there. Then came forth his progeny, the\nmighty winds, the fierce squalls, the clouds, dense, dark, fiery, wildly\ndrifting, wildly bursting; and in their midst their father rushed upon\nhis foe. Tane-mahuta and his giant forests stood unconscious and\nunsuspecting when the raging hurricane burst on them, snapping the\nmighty trees across, leaving trunks and branches rent and torn upon the\nground for the insect and the grub to prey on. Then the father of storms\nswooped down to lash the waters into billows whose summits rose like\ncliffs, till Tangaroa, god of ocean and father of all that dwell\ntherein, fled affrighted through his seas. His children, Ika-tere, the\nfather of fish, and Tu-te-wehiwehi, the father of reptiles, sought where\nthey might escape for safety; the father of fish cried, \u2018Ho, ho, let us\nall escape to the sea,\u2019 but the father of reptiles shouted in answer,\n\u2018Nay, nay, let us rather fly inland,\u2019 and so these creatures separated,\nfor while the fish fled into the sea, the reptiles sought safety in the\nforests and scrubs. But the sea-god Tangaroa, furious that his children\nthe reptiles should have deserted him, has ever since waged war on his\nbrother Tane who gave them shelter in his woods, Tane attacks him in\nreturn, supplying the offspring of his brother Tu-matauenga, father of\nfierce men, with canoes and spears and fish-hooks made from his trees,\nand with nets woven from his fibrous plants, that they may destroy\nwithal the fish, the Sea-god\u2019s children; and the Sea-god turns in wrath\nupon the Forest-god, overwhelms his canoes with the surges of the sea,\nsweeps with floods his trees and houses into the boundless ocean. Next\nthe god of storms pushed on to attack his brothers the gods and\nprogenitors of the tilled food and the wild, but Papa, the Earth, caught\nthem up and hid them, and so safely were these her children concealed by\ntheir mother, that the Storm-god sought for them in vain. So he fell\nupon the last of his brothers, the father of fierce men, but him he\ncould not even shake, though he put forth all his strength. What cared\nTu-matauenga for his brother\u2019s wrath? He it was who has planned the\ndestruction of their parents, and had shown himself brave and fierce in\nwar; his brethren had yielded before the tremendous onset of the\nStorm-god and his progeny; the Forest-god and his offspring had been\nbroken and torn in pieces; the Sea-god and his children had fled to the\ndepths of the ocean or the recesses of the shore; the gods of food had\nbeen safe in hiding; but man still stood erect and unshaken upon the\nbosom of his mother Earth, and at last the hearts of the Heaven and the\nStorm became tranquil, and their passion was assuaged.\n\nBut now Tu-matauenga, father of fierce men, took thought how he might be\navenged upon his brethren who had left him unaided to stand against the\ngod of storms. He twisted nooses of the leaves of the whanake tree, and\nthe birds and beasts, children of Tane the Forest-god, fell before him;\nhe netted nets from the flax-plant, and dragged ashore the fish, the\nchildren of Tangaroa the Sea-god; he found in the hiding-place\nunderground the children of Rongo-ma-tane, the sweet potato and all\ncultivated food, and the children of Haumia-tikitiki, the fern-root and\nall wild-growing food, he dug them up and let them wither in the sun.\nYet, though he overcame his four brothers, and they became his food,\nover the fifth he could not prevail, and Tawhiri-ma-tea, the Storm-god,\nstill ever attacks him in tempest and hurricane, striving to destroy him\nboth by sea and land. It was the bursting forth of the Storm-god\u2019s wrath\nagainst his brethren that caused the dry land to disappear beneath the\nwaters: the beings of ancient days who thus submerged the land were\nTerrible-rain, Long-continued-rain, Fierce-hailstorms; and their progeny\nwere Mist, and Heavy-dew, and Light-dew, and thus but little of the dry\nland was left standing above the sea. Then clear light increased in the\nworld, and the beings who had been hidden between Rangi and Papa before\nthey were parted, now multiplied upon the earth. \u2018Up to this time the\nvast Heaven has still ever remained separated from his spouse the Earth.\nYet their mutual love still continues; the soft warm sighs of her loving\nbosom still ever rise up to him, ascending from the woody mountains and\nvalleys, and men call these mists; and the vast Heaven, as he mourns\nthrough the long nights his separation from his beloved, drops frequent\ntears upon her bosom, and men seeing these term them dew-drops.\u2019[420]\n\nThe rending asunder of heaven and earth is a far-spread Polynesian\nlegend, well known in the island groups that lie away to the\nnorth-east.[421] Its elaboration, however, into the myth here sketched\nout was probably native New Zealand work. Nor need it be supposed that\nthe particular form in which the English governor took it down among the\nMaori priests and tale-tellers, is of ancient date. The story carries in\nitself evidence of an antiquity of character which does not necessarily\nbelong to mere lapse of centuries. Just as the adzes of polished jade\nand the cloaks of tied flax-fibre, which these New Zealanders were using\nbut yesterday, are older in their place in history than the bronze\nbattle-axes and linen mummy cloths of ancient Egypt, so the Maori poet\u2019s\nshaping of nature into nature-myth belongs to a stage of intellectual\nhistory which was passing away in Greece five-and-twenty centuries ago.\nThe myth-maker\u2019s fancy of Heaven and Earth as father and mother of all\nthings naturally suggested the legend that they in old days abode\ntogether, but have since been torn asunder. In China the same idea of\nthe universal parentage is accompanied by a similar legend of the\nseparation. Whether or not there is historical connexion here between\nthe mythology of Polynesia and China, I will not guess, but certainly\nthe ancient Chinese legend of the separation of heaven and earth in the\nprim\u00e6val days of Puang-Ku seems to have taken the very shape of the\nPolynesian myth: \u2018Some say a person called Puang-Ku opened or separated\nthe heavens and the earth, they previously being pressed down close\ntogether.\u2019[422] As to the mythic details in the whole story of \u2018The\nChildren of Heaven and Earth,\u2019 there is scarcely a thought that is not\nstill transparent, scarcely even a word that has lost its meaning to us.\nThe broken and stiffened traditions which our fathers fancied relics of\nancient history, are, as has been truly said, records of a past which\nwas never present; but the simple nature-myth, as we find it in its\nactual growth, or reconstruct it from its legendary remnants, may be\nrather called the record of a present which is never past. The battle of\nthe storm against the forest and the ocean is still waged before our\neyes; we still look upon the victory of man over the creatures of the\nland and sea; the food-plants still hide in their mother earth, and the\nfish and reptiles find shelter in the ocean and the thicket; but the\nmighty forest-trees stand with their roots firm planted in the ground,\nwhile with their branches they push up and up against the sky. And if we\nhave learnt the secret of man\u2019s thought in the childhood of his race, we\nmay still realize with the savage the personal being of the ancestral\nHeaven and Earth.\n\nThe idea of the Earth as a mother is more simple and obvious, and no\ndoubt for that reason more common in the world, than the idea of the\nHeaven as a father. Among the native races of America the Earth-mother\nis one of the great personages of mythology. The Peruvians worshipped\nher as Mama-Pacha or \u2018Mother-Earth,\u2019 and the Caribs, when there was an\nearthquake, said that it was their mother Earth dancing, and signifying\nto them to dance and make merry likewise, which accordingly they did.\nAmong the North-American Indians the Comanches call on the Earth as\ntheir mother, and the Great Spirit as their father. A story told by\nGregg shows a somewhat different thought of mythic parentage. General\nHarrison once called the Shawnee chief Tecumseh for a talk:\u2014\u2018Come here,\nTecumseh, and sit by your father!\u2019 he said. \u2018You my father!\u2019 replied the\nchief, with a stern air. \u2018No! yonder sun (pointing towards it) is my\nfather, and the earth is my mother, so I will rest on her bosom,\u2019 and he\nsat down on the ground. Like this was the Aztec fancy, as it seems from\nthis passage in a Mexican prayer to Tezcatlipoca, offered in time of\nwar: \u2018Be pleased, O our Lord, that the nobles who shall die in the war\nbe peacefully and joyously received by the Sun and the Earth, who are\nthe loving father and mother of all.\u2019[423] In the mythology of Finns,\nLapps, and Esths, Earth-Mother is a divinely honoured personage.[424]\nThrough the mythology of our own country the same thought may be traced,\nfrom the days when the Anglo-Saxon called upon the Earth, \u2018H\u00e2l wes thu\nfolde, fira modor,\u2019 \u2018Hail thou Earth, men\u2019s mother,\u2019 to the time when\nmedi\u00e6val Englishmen made a riddle of her, asking \u2018Who is Adam\u2019s mother?\u2019\nand poetry continued what mythology was letting fall, when Milton\u2019s\narchangel promised Adam a life to last\n\n                    \u2018... till like ripe fruit, thou drop\n                    Into thy mother\u2019s lap.\u2019[425]\n\nAmong the Aryan race, indeed, there stands, wide and firm, the double\nmyth of the \u2018two great parents,\u2019 as the Rig-Veda calls them. They are\n_Dyaushpitar_, \u0396\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1, _Jupiter_, the \u2018Heaven-father,\u2019 and _Prthiv\u00ee\nm\u00e2tar_, the \u2018Earth-mother;\u2019 and their relation is still kept in mind in\nthe ordinance of Brahman marriage according to the Yajur-Veda, where the\nbridegroom says to the bride, \u2018I am the sky, thou art the earth, come\nlet us marry.\u2019 When Greek poets called Ouranos and Gaia, or Zeus and\nD\u0113m\u0113t\u0113r, husband and wife, what they meant was the union of Heaven and\nEarth; and when Plato said that the earth brought forth men, but God was\ntheir shaper, the same old mythic thought must have been present to his\nmind.[426] It reappears in ancient Scythia;[427] and again in China,\nwhere Heaven and Earth are called in the Shu-King \u2018Father and Mother of\nall things.\u2019 Chinese philosophy naturally worked this idea into the\nscheme of the two great principles of nature, the Yin and Yang, male and\nfemale, heavenly and earthly, and from this disposition of nature they\ndrew a practical moral lesson: Heaven, said the philosophers of the Sung\ndynasty, made man, and earth made woman and therefore woman is to be\nsubject to man as Earth to Heaven.[428]\n\nEntering next upon the world-wide myths of Sun, Moon, and Stars, the\nregularity and consistency of human imagination may be first displayed\nin the beliefs connected with eclipses. It is well known that these\nphenomena, to us now crucial instances of the exactness of natural laws,\nare, throughout the lower stages of civilization, the very embodiment of\nmiraculous disaster. Among the native races of America it is possible to\nselect a typical series of myths describing and explaining, according to\nthe rules of savage philosophy, these portents of dismay. The Chiquitos\nof the southern continent thought the Moon was hunted across the sky by\nhuge dogs, who caught and tore her till her light was reddened and\nquenched by the blood flowing from her wounds, and then the Indians,\nraising a frightful howl and lamentation, would shoot across into the\nsky to drive the monsters off. The Caribs, thinking that the demon\nMaboya, hater of all light, was seeking to devour the Sun and Moon,\nwould dance and howl in concert all night long to scare him away. The\nPeruvians, imagining such an evil spirit in the shape of a monstrous\nbeast, raised the like frightful din when the Moon was eclipsed,\nshouting, sounding musical instruments, and beating the dogs to join\ntheir howls to the hideous chorus. Nor are such ideas extinct in our own\ndays. In the Tupi language, the proper description of a solar eclipse is\n\u2018oarasu jaguaret\u00ea v\u00fc,\u2019 that is, \u2018Jaguar has eaten Sun;\u2019 and the full\nmeaning of this phrase is displayed by tribes who still shout and let\nfly burning arrows to drive the devouring beast from his prey. On the\nnorthern continent, again, some savages believed in a great\nsun-swallowing dog, while others would shoot up arrows to defend their\nluminaries against the enemies they fancied attacking them. By the side\nof these prevalent notions there occur, however, various others; thus\nthe Caribs could imagine the eclipsed Moon hungry, sick, or dying; the\nPeruvians could fancy the Sun angry and hiding his face, and the sick\nMoon likely to fall in total darkness, and bring on the end of the\nworld; the Hurons thought the Moon sick, and explained their customary\ncharivari of shouting men and howling dogs as performed to recover her\nfrom her complaint. Passing on from these most primitive conceptions, it\nappears that natives of both South and North America fell upon\nphilosophic myths somewhat nearer the real facts of the case, insomuch\nas they admit that the Sun and Moon cause eclipses of one another. In\nCumana, men thought that the wedded Sun and Moon quarrelled, and that\none of them was wounded; and the Ojibwas endeavoured by tumultuous noise\nto distract the two from such a conflict. The course of progressive\nscience went far beyond this among the Aztecs, who, as part of their\nremarkable astronomical knowledge, seem to have had an idea of the real\ncause of eclipses, but who kept up a relic of the old belief by\ncontinuing to speak in mythologic phrase of the Sun and Moon being\neaten.[429] Elsewhere in the lower culture, there prevailed similar\nmythic conceptions. In the South Sea Islands some supposed the Sun and\nMoon to be swallowed by an offended deity, whom they therefore induced,\nby liberal offerings, to eject the luminaries from his stomach.[430] In\nSumatra we have the comparatively scientific notion that an eclipse has\nto do with the action of the Sun and Moon on one another, and,\naccordingly, they make a loud noise with sounding instruments to prevent\nthe one from devouring the other.[431] So, in Africa, there may be found\nboth the rudest theory of the Eclipse-monster, and the more advanced\nconception that a solar eclipse is \u2018the Moon catching the Sun.\u2019[432]\n\nIt is no cause for wonder that an aspect of the heavens so awful as an\neclipse should in times of astronomic ignorance have filled men\u2019s minds\nwith terror of a coming destruction of the world. It may help us still\nto realize this thought if we consider how, as Calmet pointed out many\nyears ago, the prophet Joel adopted the plainest words of description of\nthe solar and lunar eclipse, \u2018The sun shall be turned into darkness and\nthe moon into blood;\u2019 nor could the thought of any catastrophe of nature\nhave brought his hearers face to face with a more lurid and awful\npicture. But to our minds, now that the eclipse has long passed from the\nrealm of mythology into the realm of science, such words can carry but a\nfeeble glimmer of their early meaning. The ancient doctrine of the\neclipse has not indeed lost its whole interest. To trace it upward from\nits early savage stages to the period when astronomy claimed it, and to\nfollow the course of the ensuing conflict over it between theology and\nscience\u2014ended among ourselves but still being sluggishly fought out\namong less cultured nations\u2014this is to lay open a chapter of the history\nof opinion, from which the student who looks forward as well as back may\nlearn grave lessons.\n\nThere is reason to consider most or all civilized nations to have\nstarted from the myth of the Eclipse-monster in forms as savage as those\nof the New World. It prevails still among the great Asiatic nations. The\nHindus say that the demon R\u00e2hu insinuated himself among the gods, and\nobtained a portion of the amrita, the drink of immortality; Vishnu smote\noff the now immortal head, which still pursues the Sun and Moon whose\nwatchful gaze detected his presence in the divine assembly. Another\nversion of the myth is that there are two demons, R\u00e2hu and Ketu, who\ndevour Sun and Moon respectively, and who are described in conformity\nwith the phenomena of eclipses, R\u00e2hu being black, and Ketu red; the\nusual charivari is raised by the populace to drive them off, though\nindeed, as their bodies have been cut off at the neck, their prey must\nof natural course slip out as soon as swallowed. Or R\u00e2hu and Ketu are\nthe head and body of the dissevered demon, by which conception the\nEclipse-monster is most ingeniously adapted to advanced astronomy, the\nhead and tail being identified with the ascending and descending nodes.\nThe following remarks on the eclipse-controversy, made by Mr. Samuel\nDavis a century ago in the Asiatick Researches, are still full of\ninterest. \u2018It is evident, from what has been explained, that the\nP\u016bndits, learned in the Jyotish shastr\u016b, have truer notions of the form\nof earth and the economy of the universe than are ascribed to the\nHindoos in general: and that they must reject the ridiculous belief of\nthe common Brahm\u016bns, that eclipses are occasioned by the intervention of\nthe monster Rahoo, with many other particulars equally unscientific and\nabsurd. But as this belief is founded on explicit and positive\ndeclarations contained in the v\u00e9d\u016bs and pooranus, the divine authority\nof which writings no devout Hindoo can dispute, the astronomers have\nsome of them cautiously explained such passages in those writings as\ndisagree with the principles of their own science: and where\nreconciliation was impossible, have apologized, as well as they could,\nfor propositions necessarily established in the practice of it, by\nobserving, that certain things, as stated in other shastr\u016bs, might have\nbeen so formerly, and may be so still; but for astronomical purposes,\nastronomical rules must be followed.\u2019[433] It is not easy to give a more\nsalient example than this of the consequence of investing philosophy\nwith the mantle of religion, and allowing priests and scribes to convert\nthe childlike science of an early age into the sacred dogma of a late\none. Asiatic peoples under Buddhist influence show the eclipse-myth in\nits different stages. The rude Mongols make a clamour of rough music to\ndrive the attacking Aracho (R\u00e2hu) from Sun or Moon. A Buddhist version\nmentioned by Dr. Bastian describes Indra the Heaven-god pursuing R\u00e2hu\nwith his thunderbolt, and ripping open his belly, so that although he\ncan swallow the heavenly bodies, he lets them slip out again.[434] The\nmore civilized nations of South-East Asia, accepting the eclipse-demons\nR\u00e2hu and Ketu, were not quite staggered in their belief by the\nforeigners\u2019 power of foretelling eclipses, nor even by learning roughly\nto do the same themselves. The Chinese have official announcement of an\neclipse duly made beforehand, and then proceed to encounter the ominous\nmonster, when he comes, with gongs and bells and the regularly appointed\nprayers. Travellers of a century or two ago relate curious details of\nsuch combined belief in the dragon and the almanac, culminating in an\ningenious argument to account for the accuracy of the Europeans\u2019\npredictions. These clever people, the Siamese said, know the monster\u2019s\nmealtimes, and can tell how hungry he will be, that is, how large an\neclipse will be required to satisfy him.[435]\n\nIn Europe popular mythology kept up ideas, either of a fight of sun or\nmoon with celestial enemies, or of the moon\u2019s fainting or sickness; and\nespecially remnants of such archaic belief are manifested in the\ntumultuous clamour raised in defence or encouragement of the afflicted\nluminary. The Romans flung firebrands into the air, and blew trumpets,\nand clanged brazen pots and pans, \u2018laboranti succurrere lunae.\u2019 Tacitus,\nrelating the story of the soldiers\u2019 mutiny against Tiberius, tells how\ntheir plan was frustrated by the moon suddenly languishing in a clear\nsky (luna claro repente coelo visa languescere): in vain by clang of\nbrass and blast of trumpet they strove to drive away the darkness, for\nclouds came up and covered all, and the plotters saw, lamenting, that\nthe gods turned away from their crime.[436] In the period of the\nconversion of Europe, Christian teachers began to attack the pagan\nsuperstition, and to urge that men should no longer clamour and cry\n\u2018vince luna!\u2019 to aid the moon in her sore danger; and at last there came\na time when the picture of the sun or moon in the dragon\u2019s mouth became\na mere old-fashioned symbol to represent eclipses in the calendar, and\nthe saying, \u2018Dieu garde la lune des loups\u2019 passed into a mocking proverb\nagainst fear of remote danger. Yet the ceremonial charivari is mentioned\nin our own country in the seventeenth century: \u2018The Irish or Welsh\nduring eclipses run about beating kettles and pans, thinking their\nclamour and vexations available to the assistance of the higher orbes.\u2019\nIn 1654 Nuremberg went wild with terror of an impending solar eclipse;\nthe markets ceased, the churches were crowded with penitents, and a\nrecord of the event remains in the printed thanksgiving which was issued\n(Danckgebeth nach vergangener h\u00f6chstbedrohlich und hochsch\u00e4dlicher\nSonnenfinstenuss), which gives thanks to the Almighty for granting to\npoor terrified sinners the grace of covering the sky with clouds, and\nsparing them the sight of the awful sign in heaven. In our own times, a\nwriter on French folklore was surprised during a lunar eclipse to hear\nsighs and exclamations, \u2018Mon Dieu, qu\u2019elle est souffrante!\u2019 and found on\nenquiry that the poor moon was believed to be the prey of some invisible\nmonster seeking to devour her.[437] No doubt such late survivals have\nbelonged in great measure to the ignorant crowd, for the educated\nclasses of the West have never suffered in its extreme the fatal Chinese\nunion of scepticism and superstition. Yet if it is our mood to bewail\nthe slowness with which knowledge penetrates the mass of mankind, there\nstand dismal proofs before us here. The eclipse remained an omen of fear\nalmost up to our own century, and could rout a horror-stricken army, and\nfill Europe with dismay, a thousand years after Pliny had written in\nmemorable words his eulogy of the astronomers; those great men, he said,\nand above ordinary mortals, who, by discovering the laws of the heavenly\nbodies, had freed the miserable mind of men from terror at the portents\nof eclipses.\n\nDay is daily swallowed up by Night, to be set free again at dawn, and\nfrom time to time suffers a like but shorter durance in the maw of the\nEclipse and the Storm-cloud; Summer is overcome and prisoned by dark\nWinter, to be again set free. It is a plausible opinion that such scenes\nfrom the great nature-drama of the conflict of light and darkness are,\ngenerally speaking, the simple facts, which in many lands and ages have\nbeen told in mythic shape, as legends of a Hero or maiden devoured by a\nMonster, and hacked out again or disgorged. The myths just displayed\nshow with absolute distinctness, that myth can describe eclipse as the\ndevouring and setting free of the personal sun and moon by a monster.\nThe following Maori legend will supply proof as positive that the\nepisode of the Sun\u2019s or the Day\u2019s death in sunset may be dramatized into\na tale of a personal solar hero plunging into the body of the personal\nNight.\n\nMaui, the New Zealand cosmic hero, at the end of his glorious career\ncame back to his father\u2019s country, and was told that here, perhaps, he\nmight be overcome, for here dwelt his mighty ancestress, Hine-nui-te-po,\nGreat-Daughter-of-Night, whom \u2018you may see flashing, and as it were\nopening and shutting there, where the horizon meets the sky; what you\nsee yonder shining so brightly-red, are her eyes, and her teeth are as\nsharp and hard as pieces of volcanic glass; her body is like that of a\nman; and as for the pupils of her eyes, they are jasper; and her hair is\nlike the tangles of long sea-weed, and her mouth is like that of a\nbarra-couta.\u2019 Maui boasted of his former exploits, and said, \u2018Let us\nfearlessly seek whether men are to die or live for ever;\u2019 but his father\ncalled to mind an evil omen, that when he was baptizing Maui he had left\nout part of the fitting prayers, and therefore he knew that his son must\nperish. Yet he said, \u2018O, my last-born, and the strength of my old age,\n... be bold, go and visit your great ancestress, who flashes so fiercely\nthere where the edge of the horizon meets the sky.\u2019 Then the birds came\nto Maui to be his companions in the enterprise, and it was evening when\nthey went with him, and they came to the dwelling of Hine-nui-te-po, and\nfound her fast asleep. Maui charged the birds not to laugh when they saw\nhim creep into the old chieftainess, but when he had got altogether\ninside her, and was coming out of her mouth, then they might laugh long\nand loud. So Maui stripped off his clothes, and the skin on his hips,\ntattooed by the chisel of Uetonga, looked mottled and beautiful, like a\nmackerel\u2019s, as he crept in. The birds kept silence, but when he was in\nup to his waist, the little tiwakawaka could hold its laughter in no\nlonger, and burst out loud with its merry note; then Maui\u2019s ancestress\nawoke, closed on him and caught him tight, and he was killed. Thus died\nMaui, and thus death came into the world, for Hine-nui-te-po is the\ngoddess both of night and death, and had Maui entered into her body and\npassed safely through her, men would have died no more. The New\nZealanders hold that the Sun descends at night into his cavern, bathes\nin the Wai Ora Tane, the Water of Life, and returns at dawn from the\nunder-world; hence we may interpret the thought that if Man could\nlikewise descend into Hades and return, his race would be immortal.[438]\nFurther evidence that Hine-nui-te-po is the deity of Night or Hades,\nappears in another New Zealand myth. Tane, descending to the shades\nbelow in pursuit of his wife, comes to the Night (Po) of Hine-a-te-po,\nDaughter-of-Night, who says to him, \u2018I have spoken thus to her \u201cReturn\nfrom this place, as I, Hine-a-te-po, am here. I am the barrier between\nnight and day.\u201d\u2019[439] It is seldom that solar characteristics are more\ndistinctly marked in the several details of a myth than they are here.\n\nIn the list of myths of engulfing monsters, there are others which seem\nto display, with a clearness almost approaching this, an origin\nsuggested by the familiar spectacle of Day and Night, or Light and\nDarkness. The simple story of the Day may well be told in the Karen tale\nof Ta Ywa, who was born a tiny child, and went to the Sun to make him\ngrow; the Sun tried in vain to destroy him by rain and heat, and then\nblew him up large till his head touched the sky; then he went forth and\ntravelled from his home far over the earth; and among the adventures\nwhich befell him was this\u2014a snake swallowed him, but they ripped the\ncreature up, and Ta Ywa came back to life,[440] like the Sun from the\nripped up serpent-demon in the Buddhist eclipse-myth. In North American\nIndian mythology, a principal personage is Manabozho, an Algonquin hero\nor deity whose solar character is well brought into view in an Ottawa\nmyth which tells us that Manabozho (whom it calls Na-na-bou-jou) is the\nelder brother of Ning-gah-be-ar-nong Manito, the Spirit of the West, god\nof the country of the dead in the region of the setting sun. Manabozho\u2019s\nsolar nature is again revealed in the story of his driving the West, his\nfather, across mountain and lake to the brink of the world, though he\ncannot kill him. This sun-hero Manabozho, when he angled for the King of\nFishes, was swallowed, canoe and all; then he smote the monster\u2019s heart\nwith his war-club till he would fain have cast him up into the lake\nagain, but the hero set his canoe fast across the fish\u2019s throat inside,\nand finished slaying him; when the dead monster drifted ashore, the\ngulls pecked an opening for Manabozho to come out. This is a story\nfamiliar to English readers from its introduction into the poem of\nHiawatha. In another version, the tale is told of the Little Monedo of\nthe Ojibwas, who also corresponds with the New Zealand Maui in being the\nSun-Catcher; among his various prodigies, he is swallowed by the great\nfish, and cut out again by his sister.[441] South Africa is a region\nwhere there prevail myths which seem to tell the story of the world\nimprisoned in the monster Night, and delivered by the dawning Sun. The\nBasutos have their myth of the hero Litaolane; he came to man\u2019s stature\nand wisdom at his birth; all mankind save his mother and he had been\ndevoured by a monster; he attacked the creature and was swallowed whole,\nbut cutting his way out he set free all the inhabitants of the world.\nThe Zulus tell stories as pointedly suggestive. A mother follows her\nchildren into the maw of the great elephant, and finds forests and\nrivers and highlands, and dogs and cattle, and people who had built\ntheir villages there; a description which is simply that of the Zulu\nHades. When the Princess Untombinde was carried off by the\nIsikqukqumadevu, the \u2018bloated, squatting, bearded monster,\u2019 the King\ngathered his army and attacked it, but it swallowed up men, and dogs,\nand cattle, all but one warrior; he slew the monster, and there came out\ncattle, and horses, and men, and last of all the princess herself. The\nstories of these monsters being cut open imitate, in graphic savage\nfashion, the cries of the imprisoned creatures as they came back from\ndarkness into daylight. \u2018There came out first a fowl, it said,\n\u201cKukuluku! I see the world!\u201d For, for a long time it had been without\nseeing it. After the fowl there came out a man, he said \u201cHau! I at\nlength see the world!\u201d\u2019 and so on with the rest.[442]\n\nThe well-known modern interpretation of the myth of Perseus and\nAndromeda, or of Herakles and Hesione, as a description of the Sun\nslaying the Darkness, has its connexion with this group of legends. It\nis related in a remarkable version of this story, that when the Trojan\nKing Laomedon had bound his daughter Hesione to the rock, a sacrifice to\nPoseidon\u2019s destroying sea-monster, Herakles delivered the maiden,\nspringing full-armed into the fish\u2019s gaping throat, and coming forth\nhairless after three days\u2019 hacking within. This singular story, probably\nin part of Semitic origin, combines the ordinary myth of Hesione or\nAndromeda with the story of Jonah\u2019s fish, for which indeed the Greek\nsculpture of Andromeda\u2019s monster served as the model in early Christian\nart, while Joppa was the place where vestiges of Andromeda\u2019s chains on a\nrock in front of the town were exhibited in Pliny\u2019s time, and whence the\nbones of a whale were carried to Rome as relics of Andromeda\u2019s monster.\nTo recognize the place which the nature-myth of the Man swallowed by the\nMonster occupies in mythology, among remote and savage races and onward\namong the higher nations, affects the argument on a point of Biblical\ncriticism. It strengthens the position of the critics who, seeing that\nthe Book of Jonah consists of two wonder-episodes adapted to enforce two\ngreat religious lessons, no longer suppose intention of literal\nnarrative in what they may fairly consider as the most elaborate parable\nof the Old Testament. Had the Book of Jonah happened to be lost in old\ntimes, and only recently recovered, it is indeed hardly likely that any\nother opinion of it than this would find acceptance among scholars.[443]\n\nThe conception of Hades as a monster swallowing men in death, was\nactually familiar to Christian thought. Thus, to take instances from\ndifferent periods, the account of the Descent into Hades in the\nApocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus makes Hades speak in his proper\npersonality, complaining that his belly is in pain, when the Saviour is\nto descend and set free the saints imprisoned in it from the beginning\nof the world; and in medi\u00e6val representations of this deliverance, the\nso-called \u2018Harrowing of Hell,\u2019 Christ is depicted standing before a huge\nfish-like monster\u2019s open jaws, whence Adam and Eve are coming forth\nfirst of mankind.[444] With even more distinctness of mythical meaning,\nthe man-devouring monster is introduced in the Scandinavian Eireks-Saga.\nEirek, journeying toward Paradise, comes to a stone bridge guarded by a\ndragon, and entering into its maw, finds that he has arrived in the\nworld of bliss.[445] But in another wonder-tale, belonging to that\nlegendary growth which formed round early Christian history, no such\ndistinguishable remnant of nature-myth survives. St. Margaret, daughter\nof a priest of Antioch, had been cast into a dungeon, and there Satan\ncame upon her in the form of a dragon and swallowed her alive:\n\n       \u2018Maiden Mergrete tho Loked her beside,\n       And sees a loathly dragon, Out of an hirn glide:\n       His eyen were full griesly, His mouth opened wide,\n       And Margrete might no where flee There she must abide,\n\n       Maiden Margrete Stood still as any stone,\n       And that loathly worm, To her-ward gan gone\n       Took her in his foul mouth, And swallowed her flesh and bone.\n       Anon he brast\u2014Damage hath she none!\n       Maiden Mergrete Upon the dragon stood;\n       Blyth was her harte, And joyful was her mood.\u2019[446]\n\nStories belonging to the same group are not unknown to European\nfolk-lore. One is the story of Little Red Ridinghood, mutilated in the\nEnglish nursery version, but known more perfectly by old wives in\nGermany, who can tell that the lovely little maid in her shining red\nsatin cloak was swallowed with her grandmother by the Wolf, but they\nboth came out safe and sound when the hunter cut open the sleeping\nbeast. Any one who can fancy with prince Hal, \u2018the blessed sun himself a\nfair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta,\u2019 and can then imagine her\nswallowed up by Sk\u00f6ll, the Sun-devouring Wolf of Scandinavian mythology,\nmay be inclined to class the tale of Little Red Ridinghood as a myth of\nsunset and sunrise. There is indeed another story in Grimm\u2019s M\u00e4rchen,\npartly the same as this one, which we can hardly doubt to have a quaint\ntouch of sun-myth in it. It is called the Wolf and Seven Kids, and tells\nof the Wolf swallowing the kids all but the youngest of the seven, who\nwas hidden in the clock-case. As in Little Red Ridinghood, they cut open\nthe Wolf and fill him with stones. This tale, which took its present\nshape since the invention of clocks, looks as though the tale-teller was\nthinking, not of real kids and wolf, but of days of the week swallowed\nby night, or how should he have hit upon such a fancy as that the wolf\ncould not get at the youngest of the seven kids, because it was hidden\n(like to-day) in the clock case?[447]\n\nIt may be worth while to raise the question apropos of this nursery\ntale, does the peasant folk-lore of modern Europe really still display\nepisodes of nature-myth, not as mere broken-down and senseless\nfragments, but in full shape and significance? In answer it will be\nenough to quote the story of Vasilissa the Beautiful, brought forward by\nMr. W. Ralston in one of his lectures on Russian Folk-lore. Vasilissa\u2019s\nstepmother and two sisters, plotting against her life, send her to get a\nlight at the house of B\u00e1ba Yag\u00e1, the witch, and her journey contains the\nfollowing history of the Day, told in truest mythic fashion. Vasilissa\ngoes and wanders, wanders in the forest. She goes, and she shudders.\nSuddenly before her bounds a rider, he himself white, and clad in white,\nthe horse under him white, and the trappings white. And day began to\ndawn. She goes farther, when a second rider bounds forth, himself red,\nclad in red, and on a red horse. The sun began to rise. She goes on all\nday, and towards evening arrives at the witch\u2019s house. Suddenly there\ncomes again a rider, himself black, clad all in black, and on a black\nhorse; he bounded to the gates of the B\u00e1ba Yag\u00e1 and disappeared as if he\nhad sunk through the earth. Night fell. After this, when Vasilissa asks\nthe witch, who was the white rider, she answers, \u2018That is my clear Day;\u2019\nwho was the red rider, \u2018That is my red Sun;\u2019 who was the black rider,\n\u2018That is my black Night; they are all my trusty friends.\u2019 Now,\nconsidering that the story of Little Red Ridinghood belongs to the same\nclass of folk-lore tales as this story of Vasilissa the Beautiful, we\nneed not be afraid to seek in the one for traces of the same archaic\ntype of nature-myth which the other not only keeps up, but keeps up with\nthe fullest consciousness of meaning.\n\nThe development of nature-myth into heroic legend seems to have taken\nplace among the barbaric tribes of the South Sea Islands and North\nAmerica much as it took place among the ancestors of the classic\nnations of the Old World. We are not to expect accurate consistency or\nproper sequence of episodes in the heroic cycles, but to judge from\nthe characteristics of the episodes themselves as to the ideas which\nsuggested them. As regards the less cultured races, a glance at two\nlegendary cycles, one from Polynesia and the other from North America,\nwill serve to give an idea of the varieties of treatment of phases of\nsun-myth. The New Zealand myth of Maui, mixed as it may be with other\nfancies, is in its most striking features the story of Day and Night.\nThe story of the Sun\u2019s birth from the ocean is thus told. There were\nfive brothers, all called Maui, and it was the youngest Maui who had\nbeen thrown into the sea by Taranga his mother, and rescued by his\nancestor Tama-nui-ki-te-Rangi, Great-Man-in-Heaven, who took him to\nhis house, and hung him in the roof. Then is given in fanciful\npersonality the tale of the vanishing of Night at dawn. One night,\nwhen Taranga came home, she found little Maui with his brothers, and\nwhen she knew her last-born, the child of her old age, she took him to\nsleep with her, as she had been used to take the other Mauis his\nbrothers, before they were grown up. But the little Maui grew vexed\nand suspicious, when he found that every morning his mother rose at\ndawn and disappeared from the house in a moment, not to return till\nnightfall. So one night he crept out and stopped every crevice in the\nwooden window and the doorway, that the day might not shine into the\nhouse; then broke the faint light of early dawn, and then the sun rose\nand mounted into the heavens, but Taranga slept on, for she knew not\nit was broad day outside. At last she sprang up, pulled out the\nstopping of the chinks, and fled in dismay. Then Maui saw her plunge\ninto a hole in the ground and disappear, and thus he found the deep\ncavern by which his mother went down below the earth as each night\ndeparted. After this, follows the episode of Maui\u2019s visit to his\nancestress Muri-ranga-whenua, at that western Land\u2019s End where Maori\nsouls descend into the subterranean region of the dead. She sniffs as\nhe comes towards her, and distends herself to devour him, but when she\nhas sniffed round from south by east to north, she smells his coming\nby the western breeze, and so knows that he is a descendant of hers.\nHe asks for her wondrous jawbone, she gives it to him, and it is his\nweapon in his next exploit when he catches the sun, Tama-nui-te-Ra,\nGreat-Man-Sun, in the noose, and wounds him and makes him go slowly.\nWith a fishhook pointed with the miraculous jawbone, and smeared with\nhis own blood for bait, Maui next performs his most famous feat of\nfishing up New Zealand, still called Te-Ika-a-Maui, the fish of Maui.\nTo understand this, we must compare the various versions of the story\nin these and other Pacific Islands, which show that it is a general\nmyth of the rising of dry land from beneath the ocean. It is said\nelsewhere that it was Maui\u2019s grandfather, Rangi-Whenua, Heaven-Earth,\nwho gave the jawbone. More distinctly, it is also said that Maui had\ntwo sons, whom he slew when young to take their jawbones; now these\ntwo sons must be the Morning and Evening, for Maui made the morning\nand evening stars from an eye of each; and it was with the jawbone of\nthe eldest that he drew up the land from the deep. It is related that\nwhen Maui pulled up his fish, he found it was land, on which were\nhouses, and stages on which to put food, and dogs barking, and fires\nburning, and people working. It appears, moreover, that the submarine\nregion out of which the land was lifted was the under-world of Night,\nfor Maui\u2019s hook had caught the gable of the house of Hine-nui-te-po,\nGreat-Daughter-of-Night, and when the land came up her house was on\nit, and she was standing near. Another Maori legend tells how Maui\ntakes fire in his hands, it burns him, and he springs with it into the\nsea: \u2018When he sank in the waters, the sun for the first time set, and\ndarkness covered the earth. When he found that all was night, he\nimmediately pursued the sun, and brought him back in the morning.\u2019\nWhen Maui carried or flung the fire into the sea, he set a volcano\nburning. It is told, again, that when Maui had put out all fires on\nearth, his mother sent him to get new fire from her ancestress\nMahuika. The Tongans, in their version of the myth, relate how the\nyoungest Maui discovers the cavern that leads to Bulotu, the west-land\nof the dead, and how his father, another Maui, sends him to the yet\nolder Maui who sits by his great fire; the two wrestle, and Maui\nbrings away fire for men, leaving the old earthquake-god lying\ncrippled below. The legendary group thus dramatizes the birth of the\nsun from the ocean and the departure of the night, the extinction of\nthe light at sunset and its return at dawn, and the descent of the sun\nto the western Hades, the under-world of night and death, which is\nincidentally identified with the region of subterranean fire and\nearthquake. Here, indeed, the characteristics of true nature-myth are\nnot indistinctly marked, and Maui\u2019s death by his ancestress the Night\nfitly ends his solar career.[448]\n\nIt is a sunset-story, very differently conceived, that begins the\nbeautiful North American Indian myth of the Red Swan. The story belongs\nto the Algonquin race. The hunter Ojibwa had just killed a bear and\nbegun to skin him, when suddenly something red tinged all the air\naround. Reaching the shore of a lake, the Indian saw it was a beautiful\nred swan, whose plumage glittered in the sun. In vain the hunter shot\nhis shafts, for the bird floated unharmed and unheeding, but at last he\nremembered three magic arrows at home, which had been his father\u2019s. The\nfirst and second arrow flew near and nearer, the third struck the swan,\nand flapping its wings, it flew off slowly towards the sinking of the\nsun. With full sense of the poetic solar meaning of this episode\nLongfellow has adapted it as a sunset picture, in one of his Indian\npoems:\n\n                    \u2018Can it be the sun descending\n                    O\u2019er the level plain of water?\n                    Or the Red Swan floating, flying,\n                    Wounded by the magic arrow,\n\n                    Staining all the waves with crimson,\n                    With the crimson of its life-blood,\n                    Filling all the air with splendour,\n                    With the splendour of its plumage?\u2019\n\nThe story goes on to tell how the hunter speeds westward in pursuit of\nthe Red Swan. At lodges where he rests, they tell him she has often\npassed there, but those who followed her have never returned. She is the\ndaughter of an old magician who has lost his scalp, which Ojibwa\nsucceeds in recovering for him and puts back on his head, and the old\nman rises from the earth, no longer aged and decrepit, but splendid in\nyouthful glory. Ojibwa departs, and the magician calls forth the\nbeautiful maiden, now not his daughter but his sister, and gives her to\nhis victorious friend. It was in after days, when Ojibwa had gone home\nwith his bride, that he travelled forth, and coming to an opening in the\nearth, descended and came to the abode of departed spirits; there he\ncould behold the bright western region of the good, and the dark cloud\nof wickedness. But the spirits told him that his brethren at home were\nquarrelling for the possession of his wife, and at last, after long\nwandering, this Red Indian Odysseus returned to his mourning constant\nPenelope, laid the magic arrows to his bow, and stretched the wicked\nsuitors dead at his feet.[449] Thus savage legends from Polynesia and\nAmerica, possibly indeed shaped under European influence, agree with the\ntheory[450] that Odysseus visiting the Elysian fields, or Orpheus\ndescending to the land of Hades to bring back the \u2018wide-shining\u2019\nEurydik\u00ea, are but the Sun himself descending to, and ascending from, the\nworld below.\n\nWhere Night and Hades take personal shape in myth, we may expect to find\nconceptions like that simply shown in a Sanskrit word for evening,\n\u2018rajan\u00eemukha,\u2019 i.e., \u2018mouth of night.\u2019 Thus the Scandinavians told of\nHel the death-goddess, with mouth gaping like the mouth of Fenrir her\nbrother, the moon-devouring wolf; and an old German poem describes\nHell\u2019s abyss yawning from heaven to earth:\n\n                    \u2018der was der Hellen gel\u00eech\n                    diu daz abgrunde\n                    begenit mit ir munde\n                    unde den himel zuo der erden.\u2019[451]\n\nThe sculptures on cathedrals still display for the terror of the wicked\nthe awful jaws of Death, the mouth of Hell wide yawning to swallow its\nvictims. Again, where barbaric cosmology accepts the doctrine of a\nfirmament arching above the earth, and of an under world whither the sun\ndescends when he sets and man when he dies, here the conception of gates\nor portals, whether really or metaphorically meant, has its place. Such\nis the great gate which the Gold Coast negro describes the Heaven as\nopening in the morning for the Sun; such were the ancient Greek\u2019s gates\nof Hades, and the ancient Jew\u2019s gates of Sheol. There are three mythic\ndescriptions connected with these ideas found among the Karens, the\nAlgonquins, and the Aztecs, which are deserving of special notice. The\nKarens of Burma, a race among whom ideas are in great measure borrowed\nfrom the more cultured Buddhists they have been in contact with, have\nprecedence here for the distinctness of their statement. They say that\nin the west there are two massive strata of rocks which are continually\nopening and shutting, and between these strata the sun descends at\nsunset, but how the upper stratum is supported, no one can describe. The\nidea comes well into view in the description of a Bghai festival, where\nsacrificed fowls are thus addressed,\u2014\u2018The seven heavens, thou ascendest\nto the top; the seven earths, thou descendest to the bottom. Thou\narrivest at Khu-the; thou goest unto Tha-ma [i.e., Yama, the Judge of\nthe Dead in Hades.] Thou goest through the crevices of rocks, thou goest\nthrough the crevices of precipices. At the opening and shutting of the\nwestern gates of rock, thou goest in between; thou goest below the earth\nwhere the Sun travels. I employ thee, I exhort thee. I make thee a\nmessenger, I make thee an angel, &c.\u2019[452] Passing from Burma to the\nregion of the North American lakes, we find a corresponding description\nin the Ottawa tale of Iosco, already quoted here for its clearly marked\npersonification of Sun and Moon. This legend, though modern in some of\nits description of the Europeans, their ships, and their far-off land\nacross the sea, is evidently founded on a myth of Day and Night. Iosco\nseems to be Ioskeha, the White One, whose contest with his brother\nTawiscara, the Dark One, is an early and most genuine Huron nature-myth\nof Day and Night. Iosco and his friends travel for years eastward and\neastward to reach the sun, and come at last to the dwelling of Manabozho\nnear the edge of the world, and then, a little beyond, to the chasm to\nbe passed on the way to the land of the Sun and Moon. They began to hear\nthe sound of the beating sky, and it seemed near at hand, but they had\nfar to travel before they reached the place. When the sky came down, its\npressure would force gusts of wind from the opening, so strong that the\ntravellers could hardly keep their feet, and the sun passed but a short\ndistance above their heads, The sky would come down with violence, but\nit would rise slowly and gradually. Iosco and one of his friends stood\nnear the edge, and with a great effort leapt through and gained a\nfoothold on the other side; but the other two were fearful and\nundecided, and when their companions called to them through the\ndarkness, \u2018Leap! leap! the sky is on its way down,\u2019 they looked up and\nsaw it descending, but paralyzed by fear they sprang so feebly that they\nonly reached the other side with their hands, and the sky at the same\nmoment striking violently on the earth with a terrible sound, forced\nthem into the dreadful black abyss.[453] Lastly, in the funeral ritual\nof the Aztecs there is found a like description of the first peril that\nthe shade had to encounter on the road leading to that subterranean Land\nof the Dead, which the sun lights when it is night on earth. Giving the\ncorpse the first of the passports that were to carry him safe to his\njourney\u2019s end, the survivors said to him, \u2018With these you will pass\nbetween the two mountains that smite one against the other.\u2019[454] On the\nsuggestion of this group of solar conceptions and that of Maui\u2019s death,\nwe may perhaps explain as derived from a broken-down fancy of solar myth\nthat famous episode of Greek legend, where the good ship Argo passed\nbetween the Sympl\u00eagades, those two huge cliffs that opened and closed\nagain with swift and violent collision.[455] Can any effort of baseless\nfancy have brought into the poet\u2019s mind a thought so quaint in itself,\nyet so fitting with the Karen and Aztec myths of the gates of Night and\nDeath? With the Maori legend, the Argonautic tale has a yet deeper\ncoincidence. In both the event is to determine the future; but this\nthought is worked out in two converse ways. If Maui passed through the\nentrance of Night and returned to Day, death should not hold mankind; if\nthe Argo passed the Clashers, the way should lie open between them for\never. The Argo sped through in safety, and the Sympl\u00eagades can clash no\nlonger on the passing ship; Maui was crushed, and man comes not forth\nagain from Hades.\n\nThere is another solar metaphor which describes the sun, not as a\npersonal creature, but as a member of a yet greater being. He is called\nin Java and Sumatra \u2018Mata-ari,\u2019 in Madagascar \u2018Maso-andro,\u2019 the \u2018Eye of\nDay.\u2019 If we look for translation of this thought from metaphor into\nmyth, we may find it in the New Zealand stories of Maui setting his own\neye up in heaven as the Sun, and the eyes of his two children as the\nMorning and the Evening Stars.[456] The nature-myth thus implicitly and\nexplicitly stated is one widely developed on Aryan ground. It forms part\nof that macrocosmic description of the universe well known in Asiatic\nmyth, and in Europe expressed in that passage of the Orphic poem which\ntells of Jove, at once the world\u2019s ruler and the world itself: his\nglorious head irradiates the sky where hangs his starry hair, the waters\nof the sounding ocean are the belt that girds his sacred body the earth\nomniparent, his eyes are sun and moon, his mind, moving and ruling by\ncounsel all things, is the royal \u00e6ther that no voice nor sound escapes:\n\n             \u2018Sunt oculi Ph\u0153bus, Ph\u0153boque adversa recurrens\n             Cynthia. Mens verax nullique obnoxius \u00e6ther\n             Regius interitu\u2019, qui cuncta movetque regitque\n             Consilio. Vox nulla potest, sonitusve, nec ullus\n             Hancce Jovis sobolem strepitus, nec fama latere.\n             Sic animi sensum, et caput immortale beatus\n             Obtinet: illustre, immensum, immutabile pandens,\n             Atque lacertorum valido stans robore certus.\u2019[457]\n\nWhere the Aryan myth-maker takes no thought of the lesser light, he can\nin various terms describe the sun as the eye of heaven. In the Rig-Veda\nit is the \u2018eye of Mitra, Varuna, and Agni\u2019\u2014\u2018chakshuh Mitrasya Varunasyah\nAgneh.\u2019[458] In the Zend-Avesta it is \u2018the shining sun with the swift\nhorses, the eye of Ahura-Mazda;\u2019 elsewhere both eyes, apparently sun and\nmoon, are praised.[459] To Hesiod it is the \u2018all-seeing eye of\nZeus\u2019\u2014\u2018\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f30\u03b4\u1f7c\u03bd \u0394\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f40\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2:\u2019 Macrobius speaks of antiquity calling\nthe sun the eye of Jove\u2014\u2018\u03c4\u03af \u1f25\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2; \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f40\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2.\u2019[460] The old\nGermans, in calling the sun \u2018Wuotan\u2019s eye,\u2019[461] recognized Wuotan,\nWoden Odhin, as being himself the divine Heaven. These mythic\nexpressions are of the most unequivocal type. By the hint they give,\nconjectural interpretations may be here not indeed asserted, but\nsuggested, for two of the quaintest episodes of ancient European myth.\nOdin, the All-father, say the old skalds of Scandinavia, sits among his\n\u00c6sir in the city Asgard, on his high throne Hlidskialf (Lid-shelf),\nwhence he can look down over the whole world discerning all the deeds of\nmen. He is an old man wrapped in his wide cloak, and clouding his face\nwith his wide hat, \u2018os pileo ne cultu proderetur obnubens,\u2019 as Saxo\nGrammaticus has it. Odin is one-eyed; he desired to drink from Mimir\u2019s\nwell, but he had to leave there one of his eyes in pledge, as it is said\nin the V\u00f6luspa:\n\n              \u2018All know I, Odin!  Where thou hiddest thine eye\n              In Mimir\u2019s famous well.\n              Mead drinks Mimir every morning\n              From Wale-father\u2019s pledge\u2014Wit ye what this is?\u2019\n\nAs Odin\u2019s single eye seems certainly to be the sun in heaven, one may\nguess what is the lost eye in the well\u2014perhaps the sun\u2019s own reflection\nin any pool, or more likely that of the moon, which in popular myth is\ntold of as found in the well.[462] Possibly, too, some such solar fancy\nmay explain part of the myth of Perseus. There are three Scandinavian\nNorns, whose names are Urdhr, Verdhandi, and Skuld\u2014Was, and Is, and\nShall-be\u2014and these three maidens are the \u2018Weird sisters\u2019 who fix the\nlifetime of all men. So the Fates, the Parkai, daughters of the\ninevitable An\u00e1gk\u0113, divide among them the periods of time: Lachesis sings\nthe past, Kl\u00f4th\u00f4 the present, Atropos the future. Now is it allowable to\nconsider these fatal sisters as of common nature with two other mythic\nsister-triads\u2014the Graiai and their kinsfolk the Gorgons?[463] If it be\nso, it is easy to understand why of the three Gorgons one alone was\nmortal, whose life her two immortal sisters could not save, for the\ndeathless past and future cannot save the ever-dying present. Nor would\nthe riddle be hard to read, what is the one eye that the Graiai had\nbetween them, and passed from one to another?\u2014the eye of day\u2014the sun,\nthat the past gives up to the present, and the present to the future.\n\nCompared with the splendid Lord of Day, the pale Lady of Night takes, in\nmyth as in nature, a lower and lesser place. Among the wide legendary\ngroup which associates together Sun and Moon, two striking examples are\nto be seen in the traditions by which half-civilized races of South\nAmerica traced their rise from the condition of the savage tribes around\nthem. These legends have been appealed to even by modern writers as\ngratefully remembered records of real human benefactors, who carried\nlong ago to America the culture of the Old World. But happily for\nhistoric truth, mythic tradition tells its tales without expurgating the\nepisodes which betray its real character to more critical observation.\nThe Muyscas of the high plains of Bogota were once, they said, savages\nwithout agriculture, religion, or law; but there came to them from the\nEast an old and bearded man, Bochica, the child of the Sun, and he\ntaught them to till the fields, to clothe themselves, to worship the\ngods, to become a nation. But Bochica had a wicked, beautiful wife,\nHuythaca, who loved to spite and spoil her husband\u2019s work; and she it\nwas who made the river swell till the land was covered by a flood, and\nbut a few of mankind escaped to the mountain-tops. Then Bochica was\nwroth, and he drove the wicked Huythaca from the earth, and made her the\nMoon, for there had been no moon before; and he cleft the rocks and made\nthe mighty cataract of Tequendama, to let the deluge flow away. Then,\nwhen the land was dry, he gave to the remnant of mankind the year and\nits periodic sacrifices, and the worship of the Sun. Now the people who\ntold this myth had not forgotten, what indeed we might guess without\ntheir help, that Bochica was himself Zuh\u00e9, the Sun, and Huythaca the\nSun\u2019s wife, the Moon.[464]\n\nLike to this in meaning, though different in fancy, is the\ncivilization-myth of the Incas. Men, said this Quichua legend, were\nsavages dwelling in caves like wild beasts devouring wild roots and\nfruit and human flesh, covering themselves with leaves and bark or skins\nof animals. But our father the Sun took pity on them, and sent two of\nhis children, Manco Ccapac and his sister-wife, Mama Occllo these rose\nfrom the lake of Titicaca, and gave to the uncultured hordes law and\ngovernment, marriage and moral order, tillage and art and science. Thus\nwas founded the great Peruvian empire, where in after ages each Inca and\nhis sister-wife, continuing the mighty race of Manco Ccapac and Mama\nOccllo, represented in rule and religion not only the first earthly\nroyal ancestors, but the heavenly father and mother of whom we can see\nthese to be personifications, namely, the Sun himself, and his\nsister-wife the Moon.[465] Thus the nations of Bogota and Peru,\nremembering their days of former savagery, and the association of their\nculture with their national religion, embodied their traditions in myths\nof an often-recurring type, ascribing to the gods themselves, in human\nshape, the establishment of their own worship.\n\nThe \u2018inconstant moon\u2019 figures in a group of characteristic stories.\nAustralian legend says that Mityan, the Moon, was a native cat, who fell\nin love with some one else\u2019s wife, and was driven away to wander ever\nsince.[466] The Khasias of the Himalaya say that the Moon falls monthly\nin love with his mother-in-law, who throws ashes in his face, whence his\nspots.[467] Slavonic legend, following the same track, says that the\nMoon, King of Night and husband of the Sun, faithlessly loved the\nMorning Star, wherefore he was cloven through in punishment, as we see\nhim in the sky.[468] By a different train of thought, the Moon\u2019s\nperiodic death and revival has suggested a painful contrast to the\ndestiny of man, in one of the most often-repeated and characteristic\nmyths of South Africa, which is thus told among the Namaqua. The Moon\nonce sent the Hare to Men to give this message, \u2018Like as I die and rise\nto life again, so you also shall die and rise to life again,\u2019 but the\nHare went to the Men and said, \u2018Like as I die and do not rise again, so\nyou shall also die and not rise to life again.\u2019 Then the Hare returned\nand told the Moon what he had done, and the Moon struck at him with a\nhatchet and slit his lip, as it has remained ever since, and some say\nthe Hare fled and is still fleeing, but others say he clawed at the\nMoon\u2019s face and left the scars that are still to be seen on it, and they\nalso say that the reason why the Namaqua object to eating the hare (a\nprejudice which in fact they share with very different races) is because\nhe brought to men this evil message.[469] It is remarkable that a story\nso closely resembling this, that it is difficult not to suppose both to\nbe versions from a common original, is told in the distant Fiji Islands.\nThere was a dispute between two gods as to how man should die: \u2018Ra Vula\n(the Moon) contended that man should be like himself\u2014disappear awhile\nand then live again. Ra Kalavo (the Rat) would not listen to this kind\nproposal, but said, \u201cLet man die as a rat dies.\u201d And he prevailed.\u2019 The\ndates of the versions seem to show that the presence of these myths\namong the Hottentots and Fijians, at the two opposite sides of the\nglobe, is at any rate not due to transmission in modern times.[470]\n\nThere is a very elaborate savage nature-myth of the generation of the\nStars, which may unquestionably serve as a clue connecting the history\nof two distant tribes. The rude Mintira of the Malayan Peninsula express\nin plain terms the belief in a solid firmament, usual in the lower\ngrades of civilization; they say the sky is a great pot held over the\nearth by a cord, and if this cord broke, everything on earth would be\ncrushed. The Moon is a woman, and the Sun also: the Stars are the Moon\u2019s\nchildren, and the Sun had in old times as many. Fearing, however, that\nmankind could not bear so much brightness and heat, they agreed each to\ndevour her children; but the Moon, instead of eating up her stars, hid\nthem from the Sun\u2019s sight, who believing them all devoured, ate up her\nown; no sooner had she done it, than the Moon brought her family out of\ntheir hiding-place. When the Sun saw them, filled with rage she chased\nthe Moon to kill her; the chase has lasted ever since, and sometimes the\nSun even comes near enough to bite the Moon, and that is an eclipse; the\nSun, as men may still see, devours his Stars at dawn, and the Moon hides\nhers all day while the Sun is near, and only brings them out at night\nwhen her pursuer is far away. Now among a tribe of North East India, the\nHo of Chota-Nagpore, the myth reappears, obviously from the same source,\nbut with a varied ending; the Sun cleft the Moon in twain for her\ndeceit, and thus cloven and growing whole again she remains, and her\ndaughters with her which are the Stars.[471]\n\nFrom savagery up to civilization, there may be traced in the mythology\nof the Stars a course of thought, changed indeed in application, yet\nnever broken in its evident connexion from first to last. The savage\nsees individual stars as animate beings, or combines star-groups into\nliving celestial creatures, or limbs of them, or objects connected with\nthem; while at the other extremity of the scale of civilization, the\nmodern astronomer keeps up just such ancient fancies, turning them to\naccount in useful survival, as a means of mapping out the celestial\nglobe. The savage names and stories of stars and constellations may seem\nat first but childish and purposeless fancies; but it always happens in\nthe study of the lower races, that the more means we have of\nunderstanding their thoughts, the more sense and reason do we find in\nthem. The aborigines of Australia say that Yurree and Wanjel, who are\nthe stars we call Castor and Pollux, pursue Purra the Kangaroo (our\nCapella), and kill him at the the beginning of the great heat and the\nmirage is the smoke of the fire they roast him by. They say also that\nMarpean-Kurrk and Neilloan (Arcturus and Lyra) were the discoverers of\nthe ant-pupas and the eggs of the loan-bird, and taught the aborigines\nto find them for food. Translated into the language of fact, these\nsimple myths record the summer place of the stars in question, and the\nseasons of ant-pupas and loan-eggs, which seasons are marked by the\nstars who are called their discoverers.[472] Not less transparent is the\nmeaning in the beautiful Algonquin myth of the Summer-maker. In old days\neternal winter reigned upon the earth, till a sprightly little animal\ncalled the Fisher, helped by other beasts his friends, broke an opening\nthrough the sky into the lovely heaven-land beyond, let the warm winds\npour forth and the summer descend to earth, and opened the cages of the\nprisoned birds: but when the dwellers in heaven saw their birds let\nloose and their warm gales descending, they started in pursuit, and\nshooting their arrows at the Fisher, hit him at last in his one\nvulnerable spot at the tip of his tail; thus he died for the good of the\ninhabitants of earth, and became the constellation that bears his name,\nso that still at the proper season men see him lying as he fell toward\nthe north on the plains of heaven, with the fatal arrow still sticking\nin his tail.[473] Compare these savage stories with Orion pursuing the\nPleiad sisters who take refuge from him in the sea, and the maidens who\nwept themselves to death and became the starry cluster of the Hyades,\nwhose rising and setting betokened rain: such mythic creatures might for\nsimple significance have been invented by savages, even as the savage\nconstellation-myths might have been made by ancient Greeks. When we\nconsider that the Australians who can invent such myths, and invent them\nwith such fulness of meaning, are savages who put two and one together\nto make their numeral for three, we may judge how deep in the history of\nculture those conceptions lie, of which the relics are still represented\nin our star-maps by Castor and Pollux, Arcturus and Sirius, Bo\u00f6tes and\nOrion, the Argo and the Charles\u2019s Wain, the Toucan and the Southern\nCross. Whether civilized or savage, whether ancient or new made after\nthe ancient manner, such names are so like in character that any tribe\nof men might adopt them from any other, as American tribes are known to\nreceive European names into their own skies, and as our constellation of\nthe Royal Oak is said to have found its way, in new copies of the old\nHindu treatises, into the company of the Seven Sages and the other\nancient constellations of Brahmanic India.\n\nSuch fancies are so fanciful, that two peoples seldom fall on the same\nname for a constellation, while, even within the limits of the same\nrace, terms may differ altogether. Thus the stars which we call Orion\u2019s\nBelt are in New Zealand either the Elbow of Maui, or they form the stem\nof the Canoe of Tamarerete, whose anchor dropped from the prow is the\nSouthern Cross.[474] The Great Bear is equally like a Wain, Orion\u2019s Belt\nserves as well for Frigga\u2019s or Mary\u2019s Spindle, or Jacob\u2019s Staff. Yet\nsometimes natural correspondences occur. The seven sister Pleiades seem\nto the Australians a group of girls playing to a corroboree; while the\nNorth American Indians call them the Dancers; and the Lapps the Company\nof Virgins.[475] Still more striking is the correspondence between\nsavages and cultured nations in fancies of the bright starry band that\nlies like a road across the sky. The Basutos call it the \u2018Way of the\nGods;\u2019 the Ojis say it is the \u2018Way of Spirits,\u2019 which souls go up to\nheaven by.[476] North American tribes know it as \u2018the Path of the Master\nof Life,\u2019 the \u2018Path of Spirits,\u2019 \u2018the Road of Souls,\u2019 where they travel\nto the land beyond the grave, and where their camp-fires may be seen\nblazing as brighter stars.[477] Such savage imaginations of the Milky\nWay fit with the Lithuanian myth of the \u2018Road of the Birds,\u2019 at whose\nend the souls of the good, fancied as flitting away at death like birds,\ndwell free and happy.[478] That souls dwell in the Galaxy was a thought\nfamiliar to the Pythagoreans, who gave it on their master\u2019s word that\nthe souls that crowd there descend, and appear to men as dreams,[479]\nand to the Manich\u00e6ans whose fancy transferred pure souls to this \u2018column\nof light,\u2019 whence they could come down to earth and again return.[480]\nIt is a fall from such ideas of the Galaxy to the Siamese \u2018Road of the\nWhite Elephant,\u2019 the Spaniards\u2019 \u2018Road of Santiago,\u2019 or the Turkish\n\u2018Pilgrims\u2019 Road,\u2019 and a still lower fall to the \u2018Straw Road\u2019 of the\nSyrian, the Persian, and the Turk, who thus compare it with their lanes\nlittered with the morsels of straw that fall from the nets they carry it\nin.[481] But of all the fancies which have attached themselves to the\ncelestial road, we at home have the quaintest. Passing along the short\nand crooked way from St. Paul\u2019s to Cannon Street, one thinks to how\nsmall a remnant has shrunk the name of the great street of the\nW\u00e6tlingas, which in old days ran from Dover through London into Wales.\nBut there is a Watling Street in heaven as well as on earth, once\nfamiliar to Englishmen, though now almost forgotten even in local\ndialect. Chaucer thus speaks of it in his \u2018House of Fame:\u2019 \u2014\n\n                   \u2018Lo there (quod he) cast up thine eye\n                   Se yondir, lo, the Galaxie,\n                   The whiche men clepe The Milky Way,\n                   For it is white, and some parfay,\n                   Ycallin it han Watlynge strete.\u2019[482]\n\nTurning from the mythology of the heavenly bodies, a glance over other\ndistricts of nature-myth will afford fresh evidence that such legend has\nits early home within the precincts of savage culture. It is thus with\nthe myths of the Winds. The New Zealanders tell how Maui can ride upon\nthe other Winds or imprison them in their caves, but he cannot catch the\nWest wind nor find its cave to roll a stone against the mouth, and\ntherefore it prevails, yet from time to time he all but overtakes it,\nand hiding in its cave for shelter it dies away.[483] Such is the fancy\nin classic poetry of Aeolus holding the prisoned winds in his dungeon\ncave:\u2014\n\n                        \u2018Hic vasto rex Aeolus antro\n            Luctantes ventos, tempestatesque sonoras\n            Imperio premit, ac vinclis et carcere fraenat.\u2019[484]\n\nThe myth of the Four Winds is developed among the native races of\nAmerica with a range and vigour and beauty scarcely rivalled elsewhere\nin the mythology of the world. Episodes belonging to this branch of Red\nIndian folklore are collected in Schoolcraft\u2019s \u2018Algic Researches,\u2019 and\nthence rendered with admirable taste and sympathy, though unfortunately\nnot with proper truth to the originals, in Longfellow\u2019s masterpiece, the\n\u2018Song of Hiawatha.\u2019 The West Wind Mudjekeewis is Kabeyun, Father of the\nWinds, Wabun is the East Wind, Shawondasee the South Wind, Kabibonokka\nthe North Wind. But there is another mighty wind not belonging to the\nmystic quaternion, Manabozho the North-West Wind, therefore described\nwith mythic appropriateness as the unlawful child of Kabeyun. The fierce\nNorth Wind, Kabibnokka, in vain strives to force Shingebis, the\nlingering diver-bird, from his warm and happy winter-lodge; and the lazy\nSouth Wind, Shawondasee, sighs for the maiden of the prairie with her\nsunny hair, till it turns to silvery white, and as he breathes upon her,\nthe prairie dandelion has vanished.[485] Man naturally divides his\nhorizon into four quarters, before and behind, right and left, and thus\ncomes to fancy the world a square, and to refer the winds to its four\ncorners. Dr. Brinton, in his \u2018Myths of the New World,\u2019 has well traced\nfrom these ideas the growth of legend after legend among the native\nraces of America, where four brother heroes, or mythic ancestors or\ndivine patrons of mankind, prove, on closer view, to be in personal\nshape the Four Winds.[486]\n\nThe Vedic hymns to the Maruts, the Storm Winds, who tear asunder the\nforest kings and make the rocks shiver, and assume again, after their\nwont, the form of new-born babes, the mythic feats of the child Hermes\nin the Homeric hymn, the legendary birth of Boreas from Astraios and\nE\u00f4s, Starry Heaven and Dawn, work out, on Aryan ground, mythic\nconceptions that Red Indian tale-tellers could understand and\nrival.[487] The peasant who keeps up in fireside talk the memory of the\nWild Huntsman, Wodej\u00e4ger, the Grand Veneur of Fontainebleau, Herne the\nHunter of Windsor Forest, has almost lost the significance of this grand\nold storm-myth. By mere force of tradition, the name of the \u2018Wish\u2019 or\n\u2018Wush\u2019 hounds of the Wild Huntsman has been preserved through the west\nof England; the words must for ages past have lost their meaning among\nthe country folk, though we may plainly recognize in them Woden\u2019s\nancient well-known name, old German \u2018Wunsch.\u2019 As of old, the Heaven-God\ndrives the clouds before him in raging tempest across the sky, while,\nsafe within the cottage walls, the tale-teller unwittingly describes in\npersonal legendary shape this same Wild Hunt of the Storm.[488]\n\nIt has many a time occurred to the savage poet or philosopher to realize\nthe thunder, or its cause, in myths of a Thunder-bird. Of this wondrous\ncreature North American legend has much to tell. He is the bird of the\ngreat Manitu, as the eagle is of Zeus, or he is even the great Manitu\nhimself incarnate. The Assiniboins not only know of his existence, but\nhave even seen him, and in the far north the story is told how he\ncreated the world. The Ahts of Vancouver\u2019s Island talk of Tootooch, the\nmighty bird dwelling aloft and far away, the flap of whose wings makes\nthe thunder (Tootah), and his tongue is the forked lightning. There were\nonce four of these birds in the land, and they fed on whales; but the\ngreat deity Quawteaht, entering into a whale, enticed one thunder-bird\nafter another to swoop down and seize him with his talons, when plunging\nto the bottom of the sea he drowned it. Thus three of them perished, but\nthe last one spread his wings and flew to the distant height where he\nhas since remained. The meaning of the story may probably be that\nthunderstorms come especially from one of the four quarters of heaven.\nOf such myths, perhaps that told among the Dacotas is the quaintest:\nThunder is a large bird, they say: hence its velocity. The old bird\nbegins the thunder; its rumbling noise is caused by an immense quantity\nof young birds, or thunders, who continue it, hence the long duration of\nthe peals. The Indian says it is the young birds, or thunders, that do\nthe mischief; they are like the young mischievous men who will not\nlisten to good counsel. The old thunder or bird is wise and good, and\ndoes not kill anybody, nor do any kind of mischief. Descending southward\nto Central America, there is found mention of the bird Voc, the\nmessenger of Hurakan, the Tempest-god (whose name has been adopted in\nEuropean languages as _huracano_, _ouragan_, _hurricane_) of the\nLightning and of the Thunder. So among Caribs, Brazilians, Hervey\nIslanders and Karens, Bechuanas and Basutos, we find legends of a\nflapping or flashing Thunder-bird, which seem simply to translate into\nmyth the thought of thunder and lightning descending from the upper\nregions of the air, the home of the eagle and the vulture.[489]\n\nThe Heaven-god dwells in the regions of the sky, and thus what form\ncould be fitter for him and for his messengers than the likeness of a\nbird? But to cause the ground to quake beneath our feet, a being of\nquite different nature is needed, and accordingly the office of\nsupporting the solid earth is given in various countries to various\nmonstrous creatures, human or animal in character, who make their office\nmanifest from time to time by a shake given in negligence or sport or\nanger to their burden. Wherever earthquakes are felt, we are likely to\nfind a version of the great myth of the Earth-bearer. Thus in Polynesia\nthe Tongans say that Maui upholds the earth on his prostrate body, and\nwhen he tries to turn over into an easier posture there is an\nearthquake, and the people shout and beat the ground with sticks to make\nhim lie still. Another version forms part of the interesting myth lately\nmentioned, which connects the under-world whither the sun descends at\nnight, with the region of subterranean volcanic fire and of earthquake.\nThe old Maui lay by his fire in the dead-land of Bulotu, when his\ngrandson Maui came down by the cavern entrance; the young Maui carried\noff the fire, they wrestled, the old Maui was overcome, and has lain\nthere bruised and drowsy ever since, underneath the earth, which quakes\nwhen he turns over in his sleep.[490] In Celebes we hear of the\nworld-supporting Hog, who rubs himself against a tree, and then there is\nan earthquake.[491] Among the Indians of North America, it is said that\nearthquakes come of the movement of the great world-bearing Tortoise.\nNow this Tortoise seems but a mythic picture of the Earth itself, and\nthus the story only expresses in mythic phrase the very fact that the\nearth quakes; the meaning is but one degree less distinct than among the\nCaribs, who say when there is an earthquake that their Mother Earth is\ndancing.[492] Among the higher races of the continent, such ideas remain\nlittle changed in nature; the Tlascalans said that the tired\nworld-supporting deities shifting their burden to a new relay caused the\nearthquake;[493] the Chibchas said it was their god Chibchacum moving\nthe earth from shoulder to shoulder.[494] The myth ranges in Asia\nthrough as wide a stretch of culture. The Kamchadals tell of Tuil the\nEarthquake-god, who sledges below ground, and when his dog shakes off\nfleas or snow there is an earthquake;[495] Ta Ywa, the solar hero of the\nKarens, set Shie-oo beneath the earth to carry it, and there is an\nearthquake when he moves.[496] The world-bearing elephants of the\nHindus, the world-supporting frog of the Mongol Lamas, the world-bull of\nthe Moslems, the gigantic Omophore of the Manich\u00e6an cosmology, are all\ncreatures who carry the earth on their backs or heads, and shake it when\nthey stretch or shift.[497] Thus in European mythology the Scandinavian\nLoki, strapped down with thongs of iron in his subterranean cavern,\nwrithes when the overhanging serpent drops venom on him; or Prometheus\nstruggles beneath the earth to break his bonds; or the Lettish Drebkuls\nor Poseidon the Earth-shaker makes the ground rock beneath men\u2019s\nfeet.[498] From thorough myths of imagination such as most of these, it\nmay be sometimes possible to distinguish philosophic myths like them in\nform, but which appear to be attempts at serious explanation without\neven a metaphor. The Japanese think that earthquakes are caused by huge\nwhales creeping underground, having been probably led to this idea by\nfinding the fossil bones which seem the remains of such subterranean\nmonsters, just as we know that the Siberians who find in the ground the\nmammoth-bones and tusks account for them as belonging to huge burrowing\nbeasts, and by force of this belief, have brought themselves to think\nthey can sometimes see the earth heave and sink as the monsters crawl\nbelow. Thus, in investigating the earthquake myths of the world, it\nappears that two processes, the translation into mythic language of the\nphenomenon itself, and the crude scientific theory to account for it by\na real moving animal underground, may result in legends of very striking\nsimilarity.[499]\n\nIn thus surveying the mythic wonders of heaven and earth, sun, moon, and\nstars, wind, thunder, and earthquake, it is possible to set out in\ninvestigation under conditions of actual certainty. So long as such\nbeings as Heaven or Sun are consciously talked of in mythic language,\nthe meaning of their legends is open to no question, and the actions\nascribed to them will as a rule be natural and apposite. But when the\nphenomena of nature take a more anthropomorphic form, and become\nidentified with personal gods and heroes, and when in after times these\nbeings, losing their first consciousness of origin, become centres round\nwhich floating fancies cluster, then their sense becomes obscure and\ncorrupt, and the consistency of their earlier character must no longer\nbe demanded. In fact, the unreasonable expectation of such consistency\nin nature-myths, after they have passed into what may be called their\nheroic stage, is one of the mythologist\u2019s most damaging errors. The\npresent examination of nature-myths has mostly taken them in their\nprimitive and unmistakable condition, and has only been in some degree\nextended to include closely-corresponding legends in a less easily\ninterpretable state. It has lain beyond my scope to enter into any\nsystematic discussion of the views of Grimm, Grote, Max M\u00fcller, Kuhn,\nSchirren, Cox, Br\u00e9al, Dasent, Kelly, and other mythologists. Even the\noutlines here sketched out have been purposely left without filling in\nsurrounding detail which might confuse their shape, although this\nstrictness has caused the neglect of many a tempting hint to work out\nepisode after episode, by tracing their relation to the myths of far-off\ntimes and lands. It has rather been my object to bring prominently into\nview the nature-mythology of the lower races, that their clear and fresh\nmythic conceptions may serve as a basis in studying the nature-myths of\nthe world at large. The evidence and interpretation here brought\nforward, imperfect as they are, seem to countenance a strong opinion as\nto the historical development of legends which describe in personal\nshape the life of nature. The state of mind to which such imaginative\nfictions belong is found in full vigour in the savage condition of\nmankind, its growth and inheritance continue into the higher culture of\nbarbarous or half-civilized nations, and at last in the civilized world\nits effects pass more and more from realized belief into fanciful,\naffected, and even artificial poetry.\n\nFootnote 418:\n\n  Macrob. \u2018Saturn.\u2019 i. 19, 12. See Eurip. Ph\u0153n. 1116, &c. and Schol.;\n  Welcker, vol. i. p. 336; Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Lectures,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 380.\n\nFootnote 419:\n\n  Francisque-Michel, \u2018Argot,\u2019 p. 425.\n\nFootnote 420:\n\n  Sir G. Grey, \u2018Polynesian Mythology,\u2019 p. i. &c., translated from the\n  original Maori text published by him under the title of \u2018Ko nga\n  Mahinga a nga Tupuna Maori, &c.\u2019 London, 1854. Compare with Shortland,\n  \u2018Trads. of N. Z.\u2019 p. 55, &c.; R. Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 114, &c.\n\nFootnote 421:\n\n  Schirren, \u2018Wandersagen der Neuseel\u00e4nder, &c.\u2019 p. 42; Ellis, \u2018Polyn.\n  Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 116; Tyerman and Bennet, p. 526; Turner, \u2018Polynesia,\u2019\n  p. 245.\n\nFootnote 422:\n\n  Premare in Pauthier, \u2018Livres Sacr\u00e9s de l\u2019Orient,\u2019 p. 19; Doolittle,\n  \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 396.\n\nFootnote 423:\n\n  J. G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 pp. 108, 110, 117, 221, 369, 494, 620;\n  Rivero and Tschudi, \u2018Ant. of Peru,\u2019 p. 161; Gregg, \u2018Journal of a Santa\n  F\u00e9 Trader,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 237; Sahagun, \u2018Retorica, &c., Mexicana,\u2019 cap.\n  3, in Kingsborough, \u2018Ant. of Mexico,\u2019 vol. v.\n\nFootnote 424:\n\n  Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Finn. Myth.\u2019 p. 86.\n\nFootnote 425:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. xix. 229-33, 608; Halliwell, \u2018Pop. Rhymes,\u2019 p. 153;\n  Milton, \u2018Paradise Lost,\u2019 ix. 273, i. 535; see Lucretius, i. 250.\n\nFootnote 426:\n\n  Pictet, \u2018Origines Indo-Europ.\u2019 part ii. pp. 663-7; Colebrooke,\n  \u2018Essays,\u2019 vol. i. p. 220. Plato, Repub. iii. 414-5; \u2018\u1f21 \u03b3\u1f74 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\n  \u03bf\u1f56\u03c3\u03b1 \u1f00\u03bd\u1fc6\u03ba\u03b5\u2014\u1f01\u03bb\u03bb\u2019 \u1f78 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\u2019\n\nFootnote 427:\n\n  Herod. iv. 59.\n\nFootnote 428:\n\n  Plath, \u2018Religion der alten Chinesen\u2019 part i. p. 37; Davis, \u2018Chinese,\u2019\n  vol. ii. p. 64; Legge, \u2018Confucius,\u2019 p. 106; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 437, vol. iii. p. 302.\n\nFootnote 429:\n\n  J. G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 pp. 53, 219, 231, 255, 395, 420;\n  Martius \u2018Ethnog. Amer.\u2019 vol. i. pp. 329, 467, 585, vol. ii. p. 109;\n  Southey, \u2018Brazil,\u2019 vol. i. p. 352, vol. ii. p. 371; De la Borde,\n  \u2018Caraibes,\u2019 p. 525; Dobrizhoffer \u2018Abipones,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 84; Smith and\n  Lowe, \u2018Journey from Lima to Para,\u2019 p. 230; Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes\n  of N. A.\u2019 part i. p. 271; Charlevoix, \u2018Nouv. France,\u2019 vol. vi. p. 149;\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 295; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 191; \u2018Early\n  Hist, of Mankind,\u2019 p. 163.\n\nFootnote 430:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 331.\n\nFootnote 431:\n\n  Marsden, \u2018Sumatra,\u2019 p. 194.\n\nFootnote 432:\n\n  Grant in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 90; K\u00f6lle, \u2018Kanuri Proverbs,\n  &c.\u2019 p. 207.\n\nFootnote 433:\n\n  H. H. Wilson, \u2018Vishnupurana,\u2019 pp. 78, 140; Skr. Dic. s.v. r\u00e2hu; Sir W.\n  Jones in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 290; S. Davis, _ibid._, p. 258;\n  Pictet, \u2018Origines Indo-Europ.\u2019 part ii. p. 584; Roberts, \u2018Oriental\n  Illustrations,\u2019 p. 7; Hardy, \u2018Manual of Buddhism.\u2019\n\nFootnote 434:\n\n  Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Finn. Myth,\u2019 p. 63; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. ii. p.\n  344.\n\nFootnote 435:\n\n  Klemm, \u2018C. G.\u2019 vol. vi. p. 449; Doolittle, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. i. p. 308;\n  Turpin, Richard, and Borri in Pinkerton, vol. iv. pp. 579, 725, 815;\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 109, vol. iii. p. 242. See\n  Eisenmenger, \u2018Entdecktes Judenthum,\u2019 vol. i. p. 398 (Talmudic myth).\n\nFootnote 436:\n\n  Plutarch, de Facie in Orbe Lunae; Juvenal, Sat. vi. 441; Plin. ii. 9;\n  Tacit. Annal. i. 28.\n\nFootnote 437:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 668-78, 224; Hanusch, \u2018Slaw. Myth,\u2019 p. 268; Brand,\n  \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 152; Horst, \u2018Zauber-Bibliothek,\u2019 vol. iv. p.\n  350; D. Monnier, \u2018Traditions populaires compar\u00e9es,\u2019 p. 138; see Migne,\n  \u2018Dic. des Superstitions,\u2019 art. \u2018Eclipse\u2019; Cornelius Agrippa, \u2018De\n  Occulta Philosophia,\u2019 ii. c. 45, gives a picture of the lunar\n  eclipse-dragon.\n\nFootnote 438:\n\n  Grey, \u2018Polyn. Myth.\u2019 pp. 54-58; in his Maori texts, Ko nga Mahinga,\n  pp. 28-30, Ko nga Mateatea, pp. xlviii.-ix. I have to thank Sir G.\n  Grey for a more explicit and mythologically more consistent\n  translation of the story of Maui\u2019s entrance into the womb of\n  Hine-nui-te-po and her crushing him to death between her thighs, than\n  is given in his English version. Compare R. Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p.\n  132; Schirren, \u2018Wandersagen der Neuseel.\u2019 p. 33; Shortland, \u2018Trads. of\n  N. Z.\u2019 p. 63 (a version of the myth of Maui\u2019s death); see also pp.\n  171, 180, and Baker in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 53.\n\nFootnote 439:\n\n  John White, \u2018Ancient History of the Maori,\u2019 vol. i. p. 146. In former\n  editions a statement received from New Zealand was inserted, that the\n  cry or laugh of the tiwakawaka or pied fantail is only heard at\n  sunset. This, however does not agree with the accounts of Sir W. Lawry\n  Buller, who, in his \u2018Birds of New Zealand,\u2019 vol. i. p. 69,\n  supplemented by his answer to my enquiry, makes it clear that the bird\n  sings in the daytime. Thus the argument connecting the sunset-song\n  with the story as a sunset-myth falls away. In another version of\n  Maui\u2019s death, in White, vol. ii. p. 112, the laughing bird is the\n  patatai or little swamp-rail, which cries at and after nightfall and\n  in the early morning (Buller, vol. ii. p. 98). Note to 3rd ed.\n\nFootnote 440:\n\n  Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1865, part ii. p. 178,\n  &c.\n\nFootnote 441:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iii. p. 318; \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. i.\n  p. 135, &c., 144; John Tanner, \u2018Narrative,\u2019 p. 357; see Brinton,\n  \u2018Myths of New World,\u2019 p. 166. For legends of Sun-Catcher, see \u2018Early\n  Hist. of Mankind,\u2019 ch. xii.\n\nFootnote 442:\n\n  Casalis, \u2018Basutos,\u2019 p. 347; Callaway, \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 56,\n  69, 84, 334 (see also the story, p. 241, of the frog who swallowed the\n  princess and carried her safe home). See Cranz, p. 271 (Greenland\n  angekok swallowed by bear and walrus and thrown up again), and\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 506-7; J. M. Harris in \u2018Mem. Anthrop.\n  Soc.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 31 (similar notions in Africa and New Guinea).\n\nFootnote 443:\n\n  Tzetzes ap. Lycophron, Cassandra, 33. As to connexion with Joppa and\n  Ph\u0153nicia, see Plin. v. 14; ix. 4; Mela, i. 11; Strabo, xvi. 2, 28;\n  Movers, Ph\u00f6nizier, vol. i. pp. 422-3. The expression in Jonah, ii. 2,\n  \u2018out of the belly of Hades\u2019 (mibten sheol, \u1f10\u03ba \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f84\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5) seems a\n  relic of the original meaning of the myth.\n\nFootnote 444:\n\n  \u2018Apocr. Gosp.\u2019 Nicodemus, ch. xx.; Mrs. Jameson, \u2018History of our Lord\n  in Art,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 258.\n\nFootnote 445:\n\n  Eireks Saga, 3, 4, in \u2018Flateyjarbok,\u2019 vol. i., Christiania, 1859;\n  Baring-Gould, \u2018Myths of the Middle Ages,\u2019 p. 238.\n\nFootnote 446:\n\n  Mrs. Jameson, \u2018Sacred and Legendary Art,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 138.\n\nFootnote 447:\n\n  J. and W. Grimm, \u2018Kinder und Hausm\u00e4rchen,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 26, 140; vol.\n  iii. p. 15. (See ref. to these two stories, \u2018Early Hist, of M.\u2019 1st\n  ed. (1865) p. 338.) I find that Sir G. W. Cox, \u2018Mythology\u2019 (1870),\n  vol. i. p. 358, had noticed the Wolf and Seven Kids as a myth of the\n  days of the week (Note to 2nd ed.). For mentions of the wolf of\n  darkness, see Hanusch, p. 192; Edda, \u2018Gylfaginning,\u2019 12; Grimm, \u2018D.\n  M.\u2019 pp. 224, 668. With the episode of the stones substituted compare\n  the myth of Zeus and Kronos. For various other stories belonging to\n  the group of the Man swallowed by the Monster, see Lucian, Histori\u00e6\n  Ver\u00e6 I.; Hardy, \u2018Manual of Buddhism,\u2019 p. 501; Lane, \u2018Thousand and One\n  Nights,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 104; Halliwell, \u2018Pop. Rhymes,\u2019 p. 98; \u2018Nursery\n  Rhymes,\u2019 p. 48; \u2018Early Hist. of Mankind,\u2019 p. 337.\n\nFootnote 448:\n\n  Grey, \u2018Polyn. Myth.\u2019 p. 16, &c., see 144; Jas. White, \u2018Ancient History\n  of the Maori,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 76, 115. Other details in Schirren,\n  \u2018Wandersagen der Neuseel\u00e4nder,\u2019 pp. 32-7, 143-51; R. Taylor, \u2018New\n  Zealand,\u2019 p. 124, &c.; compare 116, 141, &c., and volcano-myth, p.\n  248; Yate, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 142; Polack, \u2018M. and C. of New Z.\u2019 vol.\n  i. p. 15; S. S. Farmer, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 p. 134. See also Turner,\n  \u2018Polynesia,\u2019 pp. 252, 527 (Samoan version). In comparing the group of\n  Maui-legends it is to be observed that New Zealand Mahuika and\n  Maui-Tikitiki correspond to Tongan Mafuike and Kijikiji, Samoan Mafuie\n  and Tiitii.\n\nFootnote 449:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 1-33. The three arrows recur in\n  Manabozho\u2019s slaying the Shining Manitu, vol. i. p. 153. See the\n  remarkably corresponding three magic arrows in Orvar Odd\u2019s Saga;\n  Nilsson, \u2018Stone Age,\u2019 p. 197. The Red-Swan myth of sunset is\n  introduced in George Eliot\u2019s \u2018Spanish Gypsy,\u2019 p. 63; Longfellow,\n  \u2018Hiawatha,\u2019 xii.\n\nFootnote 450:\n\n  See Kuhn\u2019s \u2018Zeitschrift,\u2019 1860, vol. ix. p. 212; Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Chips,\u2019\n  vol. ii. p. 127; Cox, \u2018Mythology,\u2019 vol. i. p. 256, vol. ii. p. 239.\n\nFootnote 451:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 291, 767.\n\nFootnote 452:\n\n  Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1865, part ii. pp.\n  233-4. Prof. Liebrecht, in his notice of the 1st ed. of the present\n  work, in \u2018G\u00f6tt. Gel. Anz.\u2019 1872, p. 1290, refers to a Burmese legend\n  in Bastian, O. A. vol. ii. p. 515, and a Mongol legend, Gesser Chan,\n  book iv.\n\nFootnote 453:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Researches,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 40, &c.; Loskiel, \u2018Gesch.\n  der Mission,\u2019 Barby, 1789, p. 47 (the English edition, part i. p. 35,\n  is incorrect). See also Brinton, \u2018Myths of New World,\u2019 p. 63. In an\n  Esquimaux tale, Giviok comes to the two mountains which shut and open;\n  paddling swiftly between, he gets through, but the mountains clashing\n  together crush the stern of his kayak: Rink, \u2018Eskimoische Eventyr og\n  Sagn,\u2019 p. 98, referred to by Liebrecht, l.c.\n\nFootnote 454:\n\n  Kingsborough, \u2018Antiquities of Mexico,\u2019 vol. i.; Torquemanda,\n  \u2018Monarquia Indiana,\u2019 xiii. 47; \u2018Con estos has de pasar por medio de\n  dos Sierras, que se estan batiendo, y encontrando la una con la otra.\u2019\n  Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 94.\n\nFootnote 455:\n\n  Apollodor. i. 9, 22; Appollon. Rhod. Argonautica, ii. 310-616; Pindar,\n  \u2018Pythia Carm.\u2019 iv. 370.\n\nFootnote 456:\n\n  Polack, \u2018Manners of N. Z.\u2019 vol. i. p. 16; \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  358; Yate, p. 142; Schirren, pp. 88, 165.\n\nFootnote 457:\n\n  Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Evang. iii. 9.\n\nFootnote 458:\n\n  Rig-Veda, i. 115; B\u00f6htlingk and Roth, s.v. \u2018mitra.\u2019\n\nFootnote 459:\n\n  Avesta, tr. Spiegel, \u2018Ya\u00e7na,\u2019 i. 35; iii., lxvii., 61-2; compare\n  Burnouf, \u2018Ya\u00e7na.\u2019\n\nFootnote 460:\n\n  Macrob. Saturnal. i. 21, 13. See Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Chips,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 85.\n\nFootnote 461:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018Deutsche Myth.\u2019 p. 665. See also Hanusch, \u2018Slaw. Myth.\u2019 p.\n  213.\n\nFootnote 462:\n\n  Edda, \u2018V\u00f6luspa,\u2019 22; \u2018Gylfaginning,\u2019 15. See Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 133;\n  \u2018Reinhart Fuchs.\u2019\n\nFootnote 463:\n\n  As to the identification of the Norns and the Fates, see Grimm, \u2018D.\n  M.\u2019 pp. 376-86; Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Chips,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 154. It is to be\n  observed in connexion with the Perseus-myth, that another of its\n  obscure episodes, the Gorgon\u2019s head turning those who look on it into\n  stone, corresponds with myths of the sun itself. In Hispaniola, men\n  came out of two caves (thus being born of their mother Earth); the\n  giant who guarded these caves strayed one night, and the rising sun\n  turned him into a great rock called Kauta, just as the Gorgon\u2019s head\n  turned Atlas the Earth-bearer into the mountain that bears his name;\n  after this, others of the early cave-men were surprised by the\n  sunlight, and turned into stones, trees, plants or beasts (Friar Roman\n  Pane in \u2018Life of Columbus\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p. 80; J. G.\n  M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 p. 179). In Central America a Quich\u00e9 legend\n  relates how the ancient animals were petrified by the Sun (Brasseur,\n  \u2018Popol Vuh,\u2019 p. 245). Thus the Americans have the analogue of the\n  Scandinavian myths of giants and dwarfs surprised by daylight outside\n  their hiding-places, and turned to stones. Such fancies appear\n  connected with the fancied human shapes of rocks or \u2018standing stones\u2019\n  which peasants still account for as transformed creatures. Thus in\n  Fiji, two rocks are a male and female deity turned to stone at\n  daylight, Seemann, \u2018Viti,\u2019 p. 66; see Liebrecht in \u2018Heidelberg.\n  Jahrb.\u2019 1864, p. 216. This idea is brought also into the Perseus-myth,\n  for the rocks abounding in Seriphos are the islanders thus petrified\n  by the Gorgon\u2019s head.\n\nFootnote 464:\n\n  Piedrahita, \u2018Hist. Gen. de las Conquistas del Nuevo Reyno de Granada,\u2019\n  Antwerp, 1688, part i. lib. i. c. 3; Humboldt, \u2018Monumens,\u2019 pl. vi.; J.\n  G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 pp. 423-30.\n\nFootnote 465:\n\n  Garcilaso de la Vega, \u2018Commentarios Reales,\u2019 i. c. 15; Prescott,\n  \u2018Peru,\u2019 vol. i. p. 7; J. G. M\u00fcller, pp. 303-8, 328-39. Other Peruvian\n  versions show the fundamental solar idea in different mythic shapes\n  (Tr. of Cieza de Leon, tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham, Hakluyt Soc.\n  1864, pp. xlix. 298, 316, 372). W. B. Stevenson (\u2018Residence in S.\n  America,\u2019 vol. i. p. 394) and Bastian (\u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 347) met\n  with a curious perversion of the myth, in which _Inca Manco Ccapac_,\n  corrupted into _Ingasman Cocapac_, gave rise to a story of an\n  _Englishman_ figuring in the midst of Peruvian mythology.\n\nFootnote 466:\n\n  Stanbridge, \u2018Abor. of Australia,\u2019 in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 301.\n\nFootnote 467:\n\n  H. Yule, \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 vol. xiii. p. 628.\n\nFootnote 468:\n\n  Hanusch, \u2018Slaw. Myth.\u2019 p. 269.\n\nFootnote 469:\n\n  Bleek, \u2018Reynard in S. Africa,\u2019 pp. 69-74; C. J. Andersson, \u2018Lake\n  Ngami,\u2019 p. 328; see Grout, \u2018Zulu-land,\u2019 p. 148; Arbousset and Daumas,\n  p. 471. As to connexion of the moon with the hare, cf. Skr. \u2018\u00e7a\u00e7anka;\u2019\n  and in Mexico, Sahagun, book vii. c. 2, in Kingsborough, vol. vii.\n\nFootnote 470:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p. 205. Compare the Caroline Island myth\n  that in the beginning men only quitted life on the last day of the\n  waning moon, and resuscitated as from a peaceful sleep when she\n  reappeared; but the evil spirit Erigirers inflicted a death from which\n  there is no revival: De Brosses, \u2018Hist. des Navig. aux Terres\n  Australes,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 479. Also in a song of the Indians of\n  California it is said, that even as the moon dies and returns to life,\n  so they shall be re-born after death; Duflot de Mofras in Bastian,\n  \u2018Rechtsverh\u00e4ltnisse,\u2019 p. 385, see \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 54.\n\nFootnote 471:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p. 284; vol. iv. p. 333; Tickell in\n  \u2018Journ. As. Soc.\u2019 Bengal, vol. ix. part ii. p. 797; Latham, \u2018Descr.\n  Eth.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 422.\n\nFootnote 472:\n\n  Stanbridge in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. pp. 301-3.\n\nFootnote 473:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. i. pp. 57-66. The story of the hero or\n  deity invulnerable like Achilles save in one weak spot, recurs in the\n  tales of the slaying of the Shining Manitu, whose scalp alone was\n  vulnerable, and of the mighty Kwasind, who could be killed only by the\n  cone of the white pine wounding the vulnerable place on the crown of\n  his head (vol. i. p. 153; vol. ii. p. 163).\n\nFootnote 474:\n\n  Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 363.\n\nFootnote 475:\n\n  Stanbridge, l.c.; Charlevoix, vol. vi. p. 148; Leems, \u2018Lapland,\u2019 in\n  Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 411. The name of the Bear occurring in North\n  America in connexion with the stars of the Great and Little Bear\n  (Charlevoix, l.c.; Cotton Mather in Schoolcraft, \u2018Tribes,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  284) has long been remarked on (Goguet, vol. i. p. 262; vol. ii. p.\n  366, but with reference to Greenland, see Cranz, p. 294). See\n  observations on the history of the Aryan name in Max M\u00fcller,\n  \u2018Lectures,\u2019 2nd series, p. 361.\n\nFootnote 476:\n\n  Casalis, p. 196; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 191.\n\nFootnote 477:\n\n  Long\u2019s Exp. vol. i. p. 288; Schoolcraft, part i. p. 272; Le Jeune in\n  \u2018Rel. des J\u00e9s. de la Nouvelle France,\u2019 1634, p. 18; Loskiel, part i.\n  p. 35; J. G. M\u00fcller, p. 63.\n\nFootnote 478:\n\n  Hanusch, pp. 272, 407, 415.\n\nFootnote 479:\n\n  Porphyr. de Antro Nympharum, 28; Macrob. de Somn. Scip. 1. 12.\n\nFootnote 480:\n\n  Beausobre, \u2018Hist. de Manich\u00e9e,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 513.\n\nFootnote 481:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 341; \u2018Chronique de Tabari,\u2019 tr.\n  Dubeux, p. 24; Grimm, \u2018D.M.\u2019 p. 330, &c.\n\nFootnote 482:\n\n  Chaucer, \u2018House of Fame,\u2019 ii. 427. With reference to questions of\n  Aryan mythology illustrated by the savage galaxy-myths, see Pictet,\n  \u2018Origines,\u2019 part ii. p. 582, &c. Mr. J. Jeremiah informs me that\n  \u2018Watling Street\u2019 is still (1871) a name for the Milky Way in Scotland;\n  see also his paper on \u2018Welsh names of the Milky Way,\u2019 Philological\n  Soc., Nov. 17, 1871. The corresponding name \u2018London Road\u2019 is used in\n  Suffolk.\n\nFootnote 483:\n\n  Yate, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 144, see Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 417.\n\nFootnote 484:\n\n  Virg. Aeneid, i. 56; Homer, Odyss. x. 1.\n\nFootnote 485:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 200; vol. ii. pp. 122, 214;\n  \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iii. p. 324.\n\nFootnote 486:\n\n  Brinton, \u2018Myths of the New World,\u2019 ch. iii.\n\nFootnote 487:\n\n  \u2018Rig-Veda,\u2019 tr. by Max M\u00fcller, vol. i. (Hymns to Maruts); Welcker,\n  \u2018Griech. G\u00f6tterl.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 67; Cox, \u2018Mythology of Aryan Nations,\u2019\n  vol. ii. ch. v.\n\nFootnote 488:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 126, 599, 894; Hunt, \u2018Pop. Rom.\u2019 1st ser. p. xix.;\n  Baring-Gould, \u2018Book of Werewolves,\u2019 p. 101; see \u2018Myths of the Middle\n  Ages,\u2019 p. 25; Wuttke, \u2018Deutsche Volksaberglaube,\u2019 pp. 13, 236;\n  Monnier, \u2018Traditions,\u2019 pp. 75, &c., 741, 747.\n\nFootnote 489:\n\n  Pr. Max v. Wied, \u2018Reise in N. A.\u2019 vol. i. pp. 446, 455; vol. ii. pp.\n  152, 223; Sir Alex. Mackenzie, \u2018Voyages,\u2019 p. cxvii.; Sproat, \u2018Scenes\n  of Savage Life\u2019 (Vancouver\u2019s I.), pp. 177, 213; Irving, \u2018Astoria,\u2019\n  vol. ii. ch. xxii.; Le Jeune, op. cit. 1634, p. 26; Schoolcraft,\n  \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iii. p. 233, \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 114-6,\n  199; Catlin, vol. ii. p. 164; Brasseur, \u2018Popol Vuh,\u2019 p. 71 and Index,\n  \u2018Hurakan;\u2019 J. G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrel.\u2019 pp. 222, 271; Ellis, \u2018Polyn.\n  Res.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 417; Jno. Williams, \u2018Missionary Enterprise,\u2019 p. 93;\n  Mason, l.c. p. 217; Moffat, \u2018South Africa,\u2019 p. 338; Casalis,\n  \u2018Basutos,\u2019 p. 266; Callaway, \u2018Religion of Amazulu,\u2019 p. 119.\n\nFootnote 490:\n\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 120; S. S. Farmer, \u2018Tonga,\u2019 p. 135;\n  Schirren, pp. 35-7.\n\nFootnote 491:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 837.\n\nFootnote 492:\n\n  J. G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 pp. 61, 122.\n\nFootnote 493:\n\n  Brasseur, \u2018Mexique,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 482.\n\nFootnote 494:\n\n  Pouchet, \u2018Plurality of Races,\u2019 p. 2.\n\nFootnote 495:\n\n  Steller, \u2018Kamtschatka,\u2019 p. 267.\n\nFootnote 496:\n\n  Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 l.c. p. 182.\n\nFootnote 497:\n\n  Bell, \u2018Tr. in Asia,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 369; Bastian, \u2018Oestl.\n  Asien,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 168; Lane, \u2018Thousand and one Nights,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  21; see Latham, \u2018Descr. Eth.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 171; Beausobre, \u2018Manich\u00e9e,\u2019\n  vol. i. p. 243.\n\nFootnote 498:\n\n  Edda, \u2018Gylfaginning,\u2019 50; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 777, &c.\n\nFootnote 499:\n\n  Kaempfer, \u2018Japan,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 684; see mammoth-myths\n  in \u2018Early Hist, of Mankind,\u2019 p. 315.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER X.\n                        MYTHOLOGY (_continued_).\n\n    Philosophical Myths: inferences become pseudo-history\u2014Geological\n    Myths\u2014Effect of doctrine of Miracles on Mythology\u2014Magnetic\n    Mountain\u2014Myths of relation of Apes to Men by development or\n    degeneration\u2014Ethnological import of myths of Ape-men, Men with\n    tails, Men of the woods\u2014Myths of Error, Perversion, and\n    Exaggeration: stories of Giants, Dwarfs, and Monstrous Tribes of\n    men\u2014Fanciful explanatory Myths\u2014Myths attached to legendary or\n    historical Personages\u2014Etymological Myths on names of places and\n    persons\u2014Eponymic Myths on names of tribes, nations, countries, &c.;\n    their ethnological import\u2014Pragmatic Myths by realization of\n    metaphors and ideas\u2014Allegory\u2014Beast-Fable\u2014Conclusion.\n\n\nAlthough the attempt to reduce to rule and system the whole domain of\nmythology would as yet be rash and premature, yet the piecemeal invasion\nof one mythic province after another proves feasible and profitable.\nHaving discussed the theory of nature-myths, it is worth while to gain\nin other directions glimpses of the crude and child-like thought of\nmankind, not arranged in abstract doctrines, but embodied by mythic\nfancy. We shall find the result in masses of legends, full of interest\nas bearing on the early history of opinion, and which may be roughly\nclassified under the following headings: myths philosophical or\nexplanatory; myths based on real descriptions misunderstood,\nexaggerated, or perverted; myths attributing inferred events to\nlegendary or historical personages; myths based on realization of\nfanciful metaphor; and myths made or adapted to convey moral or social\nor political instruction.\n\nMan\u2019s craving to know the causes at work in each event he witnesses, the\nreasons why each state of things he surveys is such as it is and no\nother, is no product of high civilization, but a characteristic of his\nrace down to its lowest stages. Among rude savages it is already an\nintellectual appetite whose satisfaction claims many of the moments not\nengrossed by war or sport, food or sleep. Even to the Botocudo or\nAustralian, scientific speculation has its germ in actual experience: he\nhas learnt to do definite acts that definite results may follow, to see\nother acts done and their results following in course, to make inference\nfrom the result back to the previous action, and to find his inference\nverified in fact. When one day he has seen a deer or a kangaroo leave\nfootprints in the soft ground, and the next day he has found new\nfootprints and inferred that such an animal made them, and has followed\nup the track and killed the game, then he knows that he has\nreconstructed a history of past events by inference from their results.\nBut in the early stages of knowledge the confusion is extreme between\nactual tradition of events, and ideal reconstruction of them. To this\nday there go about the world endless stories told as matter of known\nreality, but which a critical examination shows to be mere inferences,\noften utterly illusory ones, from facts which have stimulated the\ninvention of some curious enquirer. Thus a writer in the Asiatick\nResearches at the end of the 18th century relates the following account\nof the Andaman islanders, as a historical fact of which he had been\ninformed: \u2018Shortly after the Portuguese had discovered the passage to\nIndia round the Cape of Good Hope, one of their ships, on board of which\nwere a number of Mozambique negroes, was lost on the Andaman islands,\nwhich were till then uninhabited. The blacks remained in the island and\nsettled it: the Europeans made a small shallop in which they sailed to\nPegu.\u2019 Many readers must have had their interest excited by this curious\nstory, but at the first touch of fact it dissolves into a philosophic\nmyth, made by the easy transition from what might have been to what was.\nSo far from the islands having been uninhabited at the time of Vasco de\nGama\u2019s voyage, their population of naked blacks with frizzled hair had\nbeen described six hundred years earlier, and the story, which sounded\nreasonable to people puzzled by the appearance of a black population in\nthe Andaman islands, is of course repudiated by ethnologists aware of\nthe wide distribution of the negroid Papuans, really so distinct from\nany race of African negroes.[500] Not long since, I met with a very\nperfect myth of this kind. In a brickfield near London, there had been\nfound a number of fossil elephant bones, and soon afterwards a story was\nin circulation in the neighbourhood somewhat in this shape: \u2018A few years\nago, one of Wombwell\u2019s caravans was here, an elephant died, and they\nburied him in the field, and now the scientific gentlemen have found his\nbones, and think they have got a pr\u00e6-Adamite elephant.\u2019 It seemed almost\ncruel to spoil this ingenious myth by pointing out that such a prize as\na living mammoth was beyond the resources even of Wombwell\u2019s menagerie.\nBut so exactly does such a story explain the facts to minds not troubled\nwith nice distinctions between existing and extinct species of\nelephants, that it was on another occasion invented elsewhere under\nsimilar circumstances. This was at Oxford, where Mr. Buckland found the\nstory of the Wombwell\u2019s caravan and dead elephant current to explain a\nsimilar find of fossil bones.[501] Such explanations of the finding of\nfossils are easily devised and used to be freely made, as when fossil\nbones found in the Alps were set down to Hannibal\u2019s elephants, or when a\npetrified oyster-shell found near Mont Cenis set Voltaire reflecting on\nthe crowd of pilgrims on their way to Rome, or when theologians supposed\nsuch shells on mountains to have been left on their slopes and summits\nby a rising deluge. Such theoretical explanations are unimpeachable in\ntheir philosophic spirit, until further observation may prove them to be\nunsound. Their disastrous effect on the historic conscience of mankind\nonly begins when the inference is turned upside down, to be told as a\nrecorded fact.\n\nIn this connexion brief notice may be taken of the doctrine of miracles\nin its special bearing on mythology. The mythic wonder-episodes related\nby a savage tale-teller, the amazing superhuman feats of his gods and\nheroes, are often to his mind miracles in the original popular sense of\nthe word, that is, they are strange and marvellous events; but they are\nnot to his mind miracles in a frequent modern sense of the word, that\nis, they are not violations or supersessions of recognized laws of\nnature. Exceptio probat regulam; to acknowledge anything as an exception\nis to imply the rule it departs from; but the savage recognizes neither\nrule nor exception. Yet a European hearer, brought up to use a different\ncanon of evidence, will calmly reject this savage\u2019s most revered\nancestral traditions, simply on the ground that they relate events which\nare impossible. The ordinary standards of possibility, as applied to the\ncredibility of tradition, have indeed changed vastly in the course of\nculture through its savage, barbaric, and civilized stages. What\nconcerns us here is that there is an important department of legend\nwhich this change in public opinion, generally so resistless, left to a\ngreat extent unaltered. In the middle ages the long-accepted practice\nrose to its height, of allowing the mere assertion of supernatural\ninfluence by angels or devils, saints or sorcerers, to override the\nrules of evidence and the results of experience. The consequence was\nthat the doctrine of miracles became as it were a bridge along which\nmythology travelled from the lower into the higher culture. Principles\nof myth-formation belonging properly to the mental state of the savage,\nwere by its aid continued in strong action in the civilized world.\nMythic episodes which Europeans would have rejected contemptuously if\ntold of savage deities or heroes, only required to be adapted to\nappropriate local details, and to be set forth as miracles in the life\nof some superhuman personage, to obtain as of old a place of credit and\nhonour in history.\n\nFrom the enormous mass of available instances in proof of this let us\ntake two cases belonging to the class of geological myths. The first is\nthe well-known legend of St. Patrick and the serpents. It is thus given\nby Dr. Andrew Boorde in his description of Ireland and the Irish in\nHenry VIII.\u2019s time. \u2018Yet in Ierland is stupendyous thynges; for there is\nneyther Pyes nor venymus wormes. There is no Adder, nor Snake, nor\nToode, nor Lyzerd, nor no Euyt, nor none such lyke. I haue sene stones\nthe whiche haue had the forme and shap of a snake and other venimus\nwormes. And the people of the countre sayth that suche stones were\nwormes, and they were turned into stones by the power of God and the\nprayers of saynt Patryk. And Englysh marchauntes of England do fetch of\nthe erth of Irlonde to caste in their gardens, to kepe out and to kyll\nvenimus wormes.\u2019[502] In treating this passage, the first step is to\nseparate pieces of imported foreign myth, belonging properly not to\nIreland, but to islands of the Mediterranean; the story of the earth of\nthe island of Krete being fatal to venomous serpents is to be found in\n\u00c6lian,[503] and St. Honoratus clearing the snakes from his island (one\nof the Lerins opposite Cannes)[504] seems to take precedence of the\nIrish saint. What is left after these deductions is a philosophic myth\naccounting for the existence of fossil ammonites as being petrified\nsnakes, to which myth a historical position is given by claiming it as a\nmiracle, and ascribing it to St. Patrick. The second myth is valuable\nfor the historical and geological evidence which it incidentally\npreserves. At the celebrated ruins of the temple of Jupiter Serapis at\nPozzuoli, the ancient Puteoli, the marble columns, encircled half-way up\nby borings of lithodomi, stand to prove that the ground of the temple\nmust have been formerly submerged many feet below the sea, and\nafterwards upheaved to become again dry land. History is remarkably\nsilent as to the events demonstrated by this conclusive geological\nevidence; between the recorded adornment of the temple by Roman emperors\nfrom the second to the third century, and the mention of its existence\nin ruins in the 16th century, no documentary information was till lately\nrecognized. It has now been pointed out by Mr. Tuckett that a passage in\nthe Apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul, dating apparently more or less\nbefore the end of the 9th century, mentions the subsidence of the\ntemple, ascribing it to a miracle of St. Paul. The legend is as follows:\n\u2018And when he (Paul) came out of Messina he sailed to Didymus, and\nremained there one night. And having sailed thence, he came to Pontiole\n(Puteoli) on the second day. And Dioscorus the shipmaster, who brought\nhim to Syracuse, sympathizing with Paul because he had delivered his son\nfrom death, having left his own ship in Syracuse, accompanied him to\nPontiole. And some of Peter\u2019s disciples having been found there, and\nhaving received Paul, exhorted him to stay with them. And he stayed a\nweek in hiding, because of the command of C\u00e6sar (that he should be put\nto death). And all the toparchs were waiting to seize and kill him. But\nDioscorus the shipmaster, being himself also bald, wearing his\nshipmaster\u2019s dress, and speaking boldly, on the first day went out into\nthe city of Pontiole. Thinking therefore that he was Paul, they seized\nhim and beheaded him, and sent his head to C\u00e6sar.... And Paul, being in\nPontiole, and having heard that Dioscorus had been beheaded, being\ngrieved with great grief, gazing into the height of the heaven, said: \u201cO\nLord Almighty in Heaven, who hast appeared to me in every place whither\nI have gone on account of Thine only-begotten Word, our Lord Jesus\nChrist, punish this city, and bring out all who have believed in God and\nfollowed His word.\u201d He said to them, therefore, \u201cFollow me.\u201d And going\nforth from Pontiole with those who had believed in the word of God, they\ncame to a place called Baias (Bai\u00e6), and looking up with their eyes,\nthey all see that city called Pontiole sunk into the sea-shore about one\nfathom; and there it is until this day, for a remembrance, under the\nsea.... And those who had been saved out of the city of Pontiole, that\nhad been swallowed up, reported to C\u00e6sar in Rome that Pontiole had been\nswallowed up with all its multitude.\u2019[505]\n\nEpisodes of popular myth, which are often items of the serious belief of\nthe times they belong to, may serve as important records of intellectual\nhistory. As an example belonging to the class of philosophical or\nexplanatory myths, let us glance at an Arabian Nights\u2019 story, which at\nfirst sight may seem an effort of the wildest imagination, but which is\nnevertheless traceable to a scientific origin; this is the story of the\nMagnetic Mountain. The Third Kalenter relates in his tale how a contrary\nwind drove his ships into a strange sea, and there, by the attraction of\ntheir nails and other ironwork, they were violently drawn towards a\nmountain of black loadstone, till at last the iron flew out to the\nmountain, and the ships went to pieces in the surf. The episode is older\nthan the date when the \u2018Thousand and One Nights\u2019 were edited. When, in\nHenry of Veldeck\u2019s 12th century poem, Duke Ernest and his companions\nsail into the Klebermeer, they see the rock that is called Magnes, and\nare themselves dragged in below it among \u2018many a work of keels,\u2019 whose\nmasts stand like a forest.[506] Turning from tale-tellers to grave\ngeographers and travellers who talk of the loadstone mountain, we find\nEl Kazwini, like Serapion before him, believing such boats as may be\nstill seen in Ceylon, pegged and sewn without metal nails, to be so\nbuilt lest the magnetic rock should attract them from their course at\nsea. This quaint notion is to be found in \u2018Sir John Mandeville\u2019: \u2018In an\nisle clept Crues, ben schippes with-outen nayles of iren, or bonds, for\nthe rockes of the adamandes; for they ben alle fulle there aboute in\nthat see, that it is marveyle to spaken of. And gif a schipp passed by\nthe marches, and hadde either iren bandes or iren nayles, anon he sholde\nben perishet. For the adamande of this kinde draws the iren to him; and\nso wolde it draw to him the schipp, because of the iren; that he sholde\nnever departen fro it, ne never go thens.\u2019[507] Now it seems that\naccounts of the magnetic mountain have been given not only as belonging\nto the southern seas, but also to the north, and that men have connected\nwith such notions the pointing of the magnetic needle, as Sir Thomas\nBrowne says, \u2018ascribing thereto the cause of the needle\u2019s direction, and\nconceeving the effluxions from these mountains and rocks invite the\nlilly toward the north.\u2019[508] On this evidence we have, I think, fair\nground for supposing that hypotheses of polar magnetic mountains were\nfirst devised to explain the action of the compass, and that these gave\nrise to stories of such mountains exerting what would be considered\ntheir proper effect on the iron of passing ships. The argument is\nclenched by the consideration that Europeans, who colloquially say the\nneedle points to the north, naturally required their loadstone mountain\nin high northern latitudes while on the other hand it was as natural\nthat Orientals should place this wondrous rock in the south, for they\nsay it is to the south that the needle points. The conception of\nmagnetism among peoples who had not reached the idea of double polarity\nmay be gathered from the following quaint remarks in the 17th century\ncyclop\u00e6dia of the Chinese emperor Kang-hi. \u2018I now hear the Europeans say\nit is towards the North pole that the compass turns; the ancients said\nit was toward the South; which have judged most rightly? Since neither\ngive any reason why, we come to no more with the one side than with the\nother. But the ancients are the earlier in date, and the farther I go\nthe more I perceive that they understood the mechanism of nature. All\nmovement languishes and dies in proportion as it approaches the north;\nit is hard to believe it to be from thence that the movement of the\nmagnetic needle comes.\u2019[509]\n\nTo suppose that theories of a relation between man and the lower\nmammalia are only a product of advanced science, would be an extreme\nmistake. Even at low levels of culture, men addicted to speculative\nphilosophy have been led to account for the resemblance between apes and\nthemselves by solutions satisfactory to their own minds, but which we\nmust class as philosophic myths. Among these, stories which embody the\nthought of an upward change from ape to man, more or less approaching\nthe last-century theory of development, are to be found side by side\nwith others which in the converse way account for apes as degenerate\nfrom a previous human state.\n\nCentral American mythology works out the idea that monkeys were once a\nhuman race.[510] In South-East Africa, Father Dos Santos remarked long\nsince that \u2018they hold that the apes were anciently men and women, and\nthus they call them in their tongue the first people.\u2019 The Zulus still\ntell the tale of an Amafeme tribe who became baboons. They were an idle\nrace who did not like to dig, but wished to eat at other people\u2019s\nhouses, saying, \u2018We shall live, although we do not dig, if we eat the\nfood of those who cultivate the soil.\u2019 So the chief of that place, of\nthe house of Tusi, assembled the tribe, and they prepared food and went\nout into the wilderness. They fastened on behind them the handles of\ntheir now useless digging picks, these grew and became tails, hair made\nits appearance on their bodies, their foreheads became overhanging, and\nso they became baboons, who are still called \u2018Tusi\u2019s men.\u2019[511] Mr.\nKingsley\u2019s story of the great and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who\ndegenerated by natural selection into gorillas, is the civilized\ncounterpart of this savage myth. Or monkeys may be transformed\naborigines, as the Mbocobis relate in South America: in the great\nconflagration of their forests a man and woman climbed a tree for refuge\nfrom the fiery deluge, but the flames singed their faces and they became\napes.[512] Among more civilized nations these fancies have graphic\nrepresentatives in Moslem legends, of which one is as follows:\u2014There was\na Jewish city which stood by a river full of fish, but the cunning\ncreatures, noticing the habits of the citizens, ventured freely in sight\non the Sabbath, though they carefully kept away on working-days. At last\nthe temptation was too strong for the Jewish fishermen, but they paid\ndearly for a few days\u2019 fine sport by being miraculously turned into apes\nas a punishment for Sabbath-breaking. In after times, when Solomon\npassed through the Valley of Apes, between Jerusalem and Mareb, he\nreceived from their descendants, monkeys living in houses and dressed\nlike men, an account of their strange history.[513] So, in classic\ntimes, Jove had chastised the treacherous race of the Cercopes; he took\nfrom them the use of tongues born but to perjure, leaving them to bewail\nin hoarse cries their fate, transformed into the hairy apes of the\nPithecus\u00e6, like and yet unlike the men they had been:\u2014\n\n             \u2018In deforme viros animal mutavit, ut idem\n             Dissimiles homini possent similesque videri.\u2019[514]\n\nTurning from degeneration to development, it is found that legends of\nthe descent of human tribes from apes are especially applied to races\ndespised as low and beast-like by some higher neighbouring people, and\nthe low race may even acknowledge the humiliating explanation. Thus the\naboriginal features of the robber-caste of the Marawars of South India\nare the justification for their alleged descent from Rama\u2019s monkeys, as\nfor the like genealogy of the Kathkuri, or catechu-gatherers, which\nthese small, dark, low-browed, curly-haired tribes actually themselves\nbelieve in. The Jaitwas of Rajputana, a tribe reckoned politically as\nRajputs, nevertheless trace their descent from the monkey-god Hanuman,\nand confirm it by alleging that their princes still bear its evidence in\na tail-like prolongation of the spine; a tradition which has probably a\nreal ethnological meaning, pointing out the Jaitwas as of non-Aryan\nrace.[515] Wild tribes of the Malay peninsula, looked down on as lower\nanimals by the more warlike and civilized Malays, have among them\ntraditions of their own descent from a pair of the \u2018unka puteh,\u2019 or\n\u2018white monkeys,\u2019 who reared their young ones and sent them into the\nplains, and there they perfected so well that they and their descendants\nbecame men, but those who returned to the mountains still remained\napes.[516] Thus Buddhist legend relates the origin of the flat-nosed,\nuncouth tribes of Tibet, offspring of two miraculous apes, transformed\nto people the snow-kingdom. Taught to till the ground, when they had\ngrown corn and eaten it their tails and hair gradually disappeared, they\nbegan to speak, became men, and clothed themselves with leaves. The\npopulation grew closer, the land was more and more cultivated, and at\nlast a prince of the race of Sakya, driven from his home in India,\nunited their isolated tribes into a single kingdom.[517] In these\ntraditions the development from ape to man is considered to have come in\nsuccessive generations, but the negroes are said to attain the result in\nthe individual, by way of metempsychosis. Froebel speaks of negro slaves\nin the United States believing that in the next world they shall be\nwhite men and free, nor is there anything strange in their cherishing a\nhope so prevalent among their kindred in West Africa. But from this the\ntraveller goes on to quote another story, which, if not too good to be\ntrue, is a theory of upward and downward development, almost thorough\nenough for a Buddhist philosopher. He says, \u2018A German whom I met here\ntold me that the blacks believe the damned among the negroes to become\nmonkeys; but if in this state they behave well, they are advanced to the\nstate of a negro again, and bliss is eventually possible to them,\nconsisting in their turning white, becoming winged, and so on.\u2019[518]\n\nTo understand these stories (and they are worth some attention for the\nethnological hints they contain), it is necessary that we should discard\nthe results of modern scientific zoology, and bring our minds back to a\nruder condition of knowledge. The myths of human degeneration and\ndevelopment have much more in common with the speculations of Lord\nMonboddo than with the anatomical arguments of Professor Huxley. On the\none hand, uncivilized men deliberately assign to apes an amount of human\nquality which to modern naturalists is simply ridiculous. Everyone has\nheard the story of the negroes declaring that apes really can speak, but\njudiciously hold their tongues lest they should be made to work; but it\nis not so generally known that this is found as serious matter of belief\nin several distant regions\u2014West Africa, Madagascar, South America,\n&c.\u2014where monkeys or apes are found.[519] With this goes another\nwidely-spread anthropoid story, which relates how great apes like the\ngorilla and the orang-utan carry off women to their homes in the woods,\nmuch as the Apaches and Comanches of our own time carry off to their\nprairies the women of North Mexico.[520] And on the other hand, popular\nopinion has under-estimated the man as much as it has over-estimated the\nmonkey. We know how sailors and emigrants can look on savages as\nsenseless, ape-like brutes, and how some writers on anthropology have\ncontrived to make out of the moderate intellectual difference between an\nEnglishman and a negro something equivalent to the immense interval\nbetween a negro and a gorilla. Thus we can have no difficulty in\nunderstanding how savages may seem mere apes to the eyes of men who hunt\nthem like wild beasts in the forests, who can only hear in their\nlanguage a sort of irrational gurgling and barking, and who fail totally\nto appreciate the real culture which better acquaintance always shows\namong the rudest tribes of man. It is well known that when Sanskrit\nlegend tells of the apes who fought in the army of King Hanuman, it\nreally refers to those aborigines of the land who were driven by the\nAryan invaders to the hills and jungles, and whose descendants are known\nto us as Bhils, Kols, Sonthals, and the like, rude tribes such as the\nHindu still speaks of as \u2018monkey-people.\u2019[521] One of the most perfect\nidentifications of the savage and the monkey in Hindustan is the\nfollowing description of the _bunmanus_, or \u2018man of the woods\u2019 (Sanskr.\n_vana_ = wood, _manusha_ = man). \u2018The _bunmanus_ is an animal of the\nmonkey kind. His face has a near resemblance to the human; he has no\ntail, and walks erect. The skin of his body is black, and slightly\ncovered with hair.\u2019 That this description really applies not to apes,\nbut to the dark-skinned, non-Aryan aborigines of the land, appears\nfurther in the enumeration of the local dialects of Hindustan, to which,\nit is said, \u2018may be added the jargon of the bunmanus, or wild men of the\nwoods.\u2019[522] In the islands of the Indian Archipelago, whose tropical\nforests swarm both with high apes and low savages, the confusion between\nthe two in the minds of the half-civilized inhabitants becomes almost\ninextricable. There is a well-known Hindu fable in the Hitopadesa, which\nrelates as a warning to stupid imitators the fate of the ape who\nimitated the carpenter, and was caught in the cleft when he pulled out\nthe wedge; this fable has come to be told in Sumatra as a real story of\none of the indigenous savages of the island.[523] It is to rude\nforest-men that the Malays habitually give the name of _orang-utan_,\ni.e., \u2018man of the woods.\u2019 But in Borneo this term is applied to the\nmiyas ape, whence we have learnt to call this creature the orang-utan,\nand the Malays themselves are known to give the name in one and the same\ndistrict to both the savage and the ape.[524] This term \u2018man of the\nwoods\u2019 extends far beyond Hindu and Malay limits. The Siamese talk of\nthe _khon pa_, \u2018men of the wood,\u2019 meaning apes;[525] the Brazilians of\n_cauiari_, or \u2018wood-men,\u2019 meaning a certain savage tribe.[526] The name\nof the _Bosjesman_, so amusingly mispronounced by Englishmen, as though\nit were some outlandish native word, is merely the Dutch equivalent for\n_Bush-man_, \u2018man of the woods or bush.\u2019[527] In our own language the\n\u2018homo _silvaticus_\u2019 or \u2018forest-man\u2019 has become the \u2018_salvage_ man\u2019 or\n_savage_. European opinion of the native tribes of the New World may be\njudged of by the fact that, in 1537, Pope Paul III. had to make express\nstatement that these Indians were really men (attendentes Indos ipsos\nutpote veros homines).[528] Thus there is little cause to wonder at the\ncirculation of stories of ape-men in South America, and at there being\nsome indefiniteness in the local accounts of the _selvage_ or \u2018savage,\u2019\nthat hairy wild man of the woods who, it is said, lives in the trees,\nand sometimes carries off the native women.[529] The most perfect of\nthese mystifications is to be found in a Portuguese manuscript quoted in\nthe account of Castelnau\u2019s expedition, and giving, in all seriousness,\nthe following account of the people called _Cuatas_: \u2018This populous\nnation dwells east of the Juruena, in the neighbourhood of the rivers\nSan Jo\u00e2o and San Thome, advancing even to the confluence of the Juruena,\nand the Arinos. It is a very remarkable fact that the Indians composing\nit walk naturally like the quadrupeds, with their hands on the ground;\nthey have the belly, breast, arms, and legs covered with hair, and are\nof small stature; they are fierce, and use their teeth as weapons; they\nsleep on the ground, or among the branches of trees; they have no\nindustry, nor agriculture, and live only on fruits, wild roots, and\nfish.\u2019[530] The writer of this record shows no symptom of being aware\nthat _cuata_ or _coata_ is the name of the large black Simia Paniscus,\nand that he has been really describing, not a tribe of Indians, but a\nspecies of apes.\n\nVarious reasons may have led to the growth of another quaint group of\nlegends, describing human tribes with tails like beasts. To people who\nat once believe monkeys a kind of savages, and savages a kind of\nmonkeys, men with tails are creatures coming under both definitions.\nThus the Homo caudatus, or satyr, often appears in popular belief as a\nhalf-human creature, while even in old-fashioned works on natural\nhistory he may be found depicted on the evident model of an anthropoid\nape. In East Africa, the imagined tribe of long-tailed men are also\nmonkey-faced,[531] while in South America the _coata tapuya_, or\n\u2018monkey-men,\u2019 are as naturally described as men with tails.[532]\nEuropean travellers have tried to rationalize the stories of tailed men\nwhich they meet with in Africa and the East. Thus Dr. Krapf points to a\nleather appendage worn behind from the girdle by the Wakamba, and\nremarks, \u2018It is no wonder that people say there are men with tails in\nthe interior of Africa,\u2019 and other writers have called attention to\nhanging mats or waist-cloths, fly-flappers or artificial tails worn for\nornament, as having made their wearers liable to be mistaken at a\ndistance for tailed men.[533] But these apparently silly myths have\noften a real ethnological significance, deeper at any rate than such a\ntrivial blunder. When an ethnologist meets in any district with the\nstory of tailed men, he ought to look for a despised tribe of\naborigines, outcasts, or heretics, living near or among a dominant\npopulation, who look upon them as beasts, and furnish them with tails\naccordingly. Although the aboriginal Miau-tsze, or \u2018children of the\nsoil,\u2019 come down from time to time into Canton to trade, the Chinese\nstill firmly believe them to have short tails like monkeys;[534] the\nhalf-civilized Malays describe the ruder forest tribes as tailed\nmen;[535] the Moslem nations of Africa tell the same story of the\nNiam-Nam of the interior.[536] The outcast race of Cagots, about the\nPyrenees, were said to be born with tails; and in Spain the medi\u00e6val\nsuperstition still survives that the Jews have tails, like the devil, as\nthey say.[537] In England the notion was turned to theological profit by\nbeing claimed as a judgment on wretches who insulted St. Augustine and\nSt. Thomas of Canterbury. Horne Tooke quotes thus from that zealous and\nsomewhat foul-mouthed reformer, Bishop Bale: \u2018Johan Capgrave and\nAlexander of Esseby sayth, that for castynge of fyshe tayles at thys\nAugustyne, Dorsett Shyre menne hadde tayles ever after. But Polydorus\napplieth it unto Kentish men at Stroud by Rochester, for cuttinge of\nThomas Becket\u2019s horse\u2019s tail. Thus hath England in all other land a\nperpetuall infamy of tayles by theyr wrytten legendes of lyes, yet can\nthey not well tell where to bestowe them truely ... an Englyshman now\ncannot travayle in an other land, by way of marchandyse or any other\nhonest occupyinge, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his tethe,\nthat al Englishmen have tailes.\u2019[538] The story at last sank into a\ncommonplace of local slander between shire and shire, and the Devonshire\nbelief that Cornishmen had tails lingered at least till a few years\nago.[539] Not less curious is the tradition among savage tribes, that\nthe tailed state was an early or original condition of man. In the Fiji\nIslands there is a legend of a tribe of men with tails like dogs, who\nperished in the great deluge, while the Tasmanians declared that men\noriginally had tails and no knee-joints. Among the natives of Brazil, it\nis related by a Portuguese writer of about 1600, after a couple have\nbeen married, the father or father-in-law cuts a wooden stick with a\nsharp flint, imagining that by this ceremony he cuts off the tails of\nany future grandchildren, so that they will be born tailless.[540] There\nseems no evidence to connect the occasional occurrence of tail-like\nprojections by malformation with the stories of tailed human\ntribes.[541]\n\nAnthropology, until modern times, classified among its facts the\nparticulars of monstrous human tribes, gigantic or dwarfish, mouthless\nor headless, one-eyed or one-legged, and so forth. The works of ancient\ngeographers and naturalists abound in descriptions of these strange\ncreatures; writers such as Isidore of Seville and Roger Bacon collected\nthem, and sent them into fresh and wider circulation in the middle ages,\nand the popular belief of uncivilized nations retains them still. It was\nnot till the real world had been so thoroughly explored as to leave\nlittle room in it for the monsters, that about the beginning of the\npresent century science banished them to the ideal world of mythology.\nHaving had to glance here at two of the principal species in this\namazing semi-human menagerie, it may be worth while to look among the\nrest for more hints as to the sources of mythic fancy.[542]\n\nThat some of the myths of giants and dwarfs are connected with\ntraditions of real indigenous or hostile tribes is settled beyond\nquestion by the evidence brought forward by Grimm, Nilsson, and Hanusch.\nWith all the difficulty of analyzing the mixed nature of the dwarfs of\nEuropean folklore, and judging how far they are elves, or gnomes, or\nsuch like nature-spirits, and how far human beings in mythic aspect, it\nis impossible not to recognize the element derived from the kindly or\nmischievous aborigines of the land, with their special language, and\nreligion, and costume. The giants appear in European folklore as\nStone-Age heathen, shy of the conquering tribes of men, loathing their\nagriculture and the sound of their church-bells. The rude native\u2019s fear\nof the more civilized intruder in his land is well depicted in the tale\nof the giant\u2019s daughter, who found the boor ploughing his field and\ncarried him home in her apron for a plaything\u2014plough, and oxen, and all;\nbut her mother bade her carry them back to where she found them, for,\nsaid she, they are of a people that can do the Huns much ill. The fact\nof the giant tribes bearing such historic names as Hun or Chud is\nsignificant, and Slavonic men have, perhaps, not yet forgotten that the\ndwarfs talked of in their legends were descended from the aborigines\nwhom the Old-Prussians found in the land. Beyond a doubt the old\nScandinavians are describing the ancient and ill-used Lapp population,\nonce so widely spread over Northern Europe, when their sagas tell of the\ndwarfs, stunted and ugly, dressed in reindeer kirtle and coloured cap,\ncunning and cowardly, shy of intercourse even with friendly Norsemen,\ndwelling in caves or in the mound-like Lapland \u2018gamm,\u2019 armed only with\narrows tipped with stone and bone, yet feared and hated by their\nconquerors for their fancied powers of witchcraft.[543] Moslem legend\nrelates that the race of Gog and Magog (Yajuj and Majuj) are of tiny\nstature, but with ears like elephants; they are a numerous people, and\nravaged the world; they dwell in the East, separated from Persia by a\nhigh mountain, with but one pass; and the nations their neighbours, when\nthey heard of Alexander the Great (Dh\u00fb \u2019l-Karnain) traversing the world,\npaid tribute to him, and he made them a wall of bronze and iron, to keep\nin the nation of Gog and Magog.[544] Who can fail to recognize in this a\nmystified description of the Tatars of High Asia? Professor Nilsson\ntries to account in a general way for the huge or tiny stature of\nlegendary tribes, as being mere exaggeration of their actual largeness\nor smallness. We must admit that this sometimes really happens. The\naccounts which European eye-witnesses brought home of the colossal\nstature of the Patagonians, to whose waists they declared their own\nheads reached, are enough to settle once for all the fact that myths of\ngiants may arise from the sight of really tall men,[545] and it is so,\ntoo, with the dwarf-legends of the same region, as where Knivet, the old\ntraveller, remarks of the little people of Rio de la Plata, that they\nare \u2018not so very little as described.\u2019[546]\n\nNevertheless, this same group of giant and dwarf myths may serve as a\nwarning not to stretch too widely a partial explanation, however sound\nwithin its proper limits. There is plenty of evidence that giant-legends\nare sometimes philosophic myths, made to account for the finding of\ngreat fossil bones. To give but a single instance of such connexion,\ncertain huge jaws and teeth, found in excavating on the Hoe at Plymouth,\nwere recognized as belonging to the giant Gogmagog, who in old times\nfought his last fight there against Corineus, the eponymic hero of\nCornwall.[547] As to the dwarfs, again, stories of them are curiously\nassociated with those long-enduring monuments of departed races\u2014their\nburial-cysts and dolmens. Thus, in the United States, ranges of rude\nstone cysts, often only two or three feet long, are connected with the\nidea of a pygmy race buried in them. In Brittany, the dolmens are the\nabodes and treasuries of the dwarfs who built them, and likewise in\nIndia it is a usual legend of such prehistoric burial-places, that they\nwere dwarfs\u2019 houses\u2014the dwellings of the ancient pygmies, who here again\nappear as representatives of prehistoric tribes.[548] But a very\ndifferent meaning is obvious in a medi\u00e6val traveller\u2019s account of the\nhairy, man-like creatures of Cathay, one cubit high, and that do not\nbend their knees as they walk, or in an Arab geographer\u2019s description of\nan island people in the Indian seas, four spans high, naked, with red\ndowny hair on their faces, and who climb up trees and shun mankind. If\nany one could possibly doubt the real nature of these dwarfs, his doubt\nmay be resolved by Marco Polo\u2019s statement that in his time monkeys were\nregularly embalmed in the East Indies, and sold in boxes to be exhibited\nover the world as pygmies.[549] Thus various different facts have given\nrise to stories of giants and dwarfs, more than one mythic element\nperhaps combining to form a single legend\u2014a result perplexing in the\nextreme to the mythological interpreter.\n\nDescriptions of strange tribes made in entire good faith may come to be\nunderstood in new extravagant senses, when carried among people not\naware of the original facts. The following are some interpretations of\nthis kind, among which some far-fetched cases are given, to show that\nthe method must not be trusted too much. The term \u2018nose-less\u2019 is apt to\nbe misunderstood, yet it was fairly enough applied to flat-nosed tribes,\nsuch as Turks of the steppes, whom Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela thus depicts\nin the twelfth century:\u2014\u2018They have no noses, but draw breath through two\nsmall holes.\u2019[550] Again, among the common ornamental mutilations of\nsavages is that of stretching the ears to an enormous size by weights or\ncoils, and it is thus verbally quite true that there are men whose ears\nhang down upon their shoulders. Yet without explanation such a phrase\nwould be understood to describe, not the appearance of a real savage\nwith his ear-lobes stretched into pendant fleshy loops, but rather that\nof Pliny\u2019s _Panotii_, or of the Indian _Karnapr\u00e2varana_, \u2018whose ears\nserve them for cloaks,\u2019 or of the African dwarfs, said to use their ears\none for mattress and the other for coverlet when they lie down. One of\nthe most extravagant of these stories is told by Fray Pedro Simon in\nCalifornia, where in fact the territory of _Oregon_ has its name from\nthe Spanish term of _Orejones_, or \u2018Big-Ears,\u2019 given to the inhabitants\nfrom their practice of stretching their ears with ornaments.[551] Even\npurely metaphorical descriptions, if taken in a literal sense, are\ncapable of turning into catches, like the story of the horse with its\nhead where its tail should be. I have been told by a French Protestant\nfrom the Nismes district that the epithet of _gorgeo negro_, or\n\u2018black-throat,\u2019 by which Catholics describe a Huguenot, was taken so\nliterally that heretic children were sometimes forced to open their\nmouths to satisfy the orthodox of their being of the usual colour\nwithin. On examining the description of savage tribes by higher races,\nit appears that several of the epithets usually applied only need\nliteralizing to turn into the wildest of the legendary monster-stories.\nThus the Burmese speak of the rude Karens as \u2018dog-men;\u2019[552] Marco Polo\ndescribes the Angaman (Andaman) islanders as brutish and savage\ncannibals, with heads like dogs.[553] \u00c6lian\u2019s account of the dog-headed\npeople of India is on the face of it an account of a savage race. The\nKynokephali, he says, are so called from their bodily appearance, but\notherwise they are human, and they go dressed in the skins of beasts;\nthey are just, and harm not men; they cannot speak, but roar, yet they\nunderstand the language of the Indians; they live by hunting, being\nswift of foot, and they cook their game not by fire, but by tearing it\ninto fragments and drying it in the sun; they keep goats and sheep, and\ndrink the milk. The naturalist concludes by saying that he mentions\nthese fitly among the irrational animals, because they have not\narticulate, distinct, and human language.[554] This last suggestive\nremark well states the old prevalent notion that barbarians have no real\nlanguage, but are \u2018speechless,\u2019 \u2018tongueless,\u2019 or even mouthless.[555]\nAnother monstrous people of wide celebrity are Pliny\u2019s Blemmy\u00e6, said to\nbe headless, and accordingly to have their mouths and eyes in their\nbreasts creatures over whom Prester John reigned in Asia, who dwelt far\nand wide in South American forests, and who to our medi\u00e6val ancestors\nwere as real as the cannibals with whom Othello couples them:\u2014\n\n                  \u2018The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads\n                  Do grow beneath their shoulders.\u2019\n\nIf, however, we look in dictionaries for the _Acephali_, we may find not\nactual headless monsters, but heretics so called because their original\nhead or founder was not known; and when the kingless Turkoman hordes say\nof themselves \u2018We are a people without a head,\u2019 the metaphor is even\nmore plain and natural.[556] Moslem legend tells of the Shikk and the\nNesnas, creatures like one half of a split man, with one arm, leg, and\neye. Possibly it was thence that the Zulus got their idea of a tribe of\nhalf-men, who in one of their stories found a Zulu maiden in a cave and\nthought she was two people, but on closer inspection of her admitted,\n\u2018The thing is pretty! But oh the two legs!\u2019 These realistic fancies\ncoincide with the simple metaphor which describes a savage as only \u2018half\na man,\u2019 _semihomo_, as Virgil calls the ferocious Cacus.[557] Again,\nwhen the Chinese compared themselves to the outer barbarians, they said\n\u2018We see with two eyes, the Latins with one, and all other nations are\nblind.\u2019 Such metaphors, proverbial among ourselves, verbally correspond\nwith legends of one-eyed tribes, such as the savage cave-dwelling\nKyklopes.[558] Verbal coincidence of this kind, untrustworthy enough in\nthese latter instances, passes at last into the vaguest fancy. The\nnegroes called Europeans \u2018long-headed,\u2019 using the phrase in our familiar\nmetaphorical sense; but translate it into Greek, and at once Hesiod\u2019s\n_Makrokephaloi_ come into being.[559] And, to conclude the list, one of\nthe commonest of the monster-tribes of the Old and New World is that\ndistinguished by having feet turned backward. Now there is really a\npeople whose name, memorable in scientific controversy, describes them\nas \u2018having feet the opposite way,\u2019 and they still retain that ancient\nname of _Antipodes_.[560]\n\nReturning from this digression to the region of philosophic myth, we may\nexamine new groups of explanatory stories, produced from that craving to\nknow causes and reasons which ever besets mankind. When the attention of\na man in the myth-making stage of intellect is drawn to any phenomenon\nor custom which has to him no obvious reason, he invents and tells a\nstory to account for it, and even if he does not persuade himself that\nthis is a real legend of his forefathers, the story-teller who hears it\nfrom him and repeats it is troubled with no such difficulty. Our task in\ndealing with such stories is made easy when the criterion of possibility\ncan be brought to bear upon them. It has become a mere certainty to\nmoderns that asbestos is not really salamander\u2019s wool; that morbid\nhunger is not really caused by a lizard or a bird in a man\u2019s stomach;\nthat a Chinese philosopher cannot really have invented the fire-drill by\nseeing a bird peck at the branches of a tree till sparks came. The\nAfrican Wakuafi account for their cattle-lifting proclivities by the\ncalm assertion that Engai, that is, Heaven, gave all cattle to them, and\nso wherever there is any it is their call to go and seize it.[561] So in\nSouth America the fierce Mbayas declare they received from the Caracara\na divine command to make war on all other tribes, killing the men and\nadopting the women and children.[562] But though it may be consistent\nwith the notions of these savages to relate such explanatory legends, it\nis not consistent with our notions to believe them. Fortunately, too,\nthe ex post facto legends are apt to come into collision with more\nauthentic sources of information, or to encroach on the domain of valid\nhistory. It is of no use for the Chinese to tell their stupid story of\nwritten characters having been invented from the markings on a\ntortoise\u2019s shell, for the early forms of such characters, plain and\nsimple pictures of objects, have been preserved in China to this day.\nNor can we praise anything but ingenuity in the West Highland legend\nthat the Pope once laid an interdict on the land, but forgot to curse\nthe hills, so the people tilled them, this story being told to account\nfor those ancient traces of tillage still to be seen on the wild\nhill-sides, the so-called \u2018elf-furrows.\u2019[563] The most embarrassing\ncases of explanatory tradition are those which are neither impossible\nenough to condemn, nor probable enough to receive. Ethnographers who\nknow how world-wide is the practice of defacing the teeth among the\nlower races, and how it only dies gradually out in higher civilization,\nnaturally ascribe the habit to some general reason in human nature, at a\nparticular stage of development. But the mutilating tribes themselves\nhave local legends to account for local customs; thus the Penongs of\nBurmah and the Batoka of East Africa both break their front teeth, but\nthe one tribe says its reason is not to look like apes, the other that\nit is to be like oxen and not like zebras.[564] Of the legends of\ntattooing, one of the oldest is that told to account for the fact that\nwhile the Fijians tattoo only the women, their neighbours, the Tongans,\ntattoo only the men. It is related that a Tongan, on his way from Fiji\nto report to his countrymen the proper custom for them to observe, went\non his way repeating the rule he had carefully learnt by heart, \u2018Tattoo\nthe women, but not the men,\u2019 but unluckily he tripped over a stump, got\nhis lesson wrong, and reached Tonga repeating \u2018Tattoo the men, but not\nthe women,\u2019 an ordinance which they observed ever after. How reasonable\nsuch an explanation seemed to the Polynesian mind, may be judged from\nthe Samoans having a version with different details, and applied to\ntheir own instead of the Tongan islands.[565]\n\nAll men feel how wanting in sense of reality is a story with no personal\nname to hang it to. This want is thus graphically expressed by Sprenger\nthe historian in his life of Mohammed: \u2018It makes, on me at least, quite\na different impression when it is related that \u201cthe Prophet said to\nAlkama,\u201d even if I knew nothing whatever else of this Alkama, than if it\nwere merely stated that \u201che said to somebody.\u201d\u2019 The feeling which this\nacute and learned critic thus candidly confesses, has from the earliest\ntimes, and in the minds of men troubled with no such nice historic\nconscience, germinated to the production of much mythic fruit. Thus it\nhas come to pass that one of the leading personages to be met with in\nthe tradition of the world is really no more than\u2014Somebody. There is\nnothing this wondrous creature cannot achieve, no shape he cannot put\non; one only restriction binds him at all, that the name he assumes\nshall have some sort of congruity with the office he undertakes, and\neven from this he oftentimes breaks loose. So rife in our own day is\nthis manufacture of personal history, often fitted up with details of\nplace and date into the very semblance of real chronicle, that it may be\nguessed how vast its working must have been in days of old. Thus the\nruins of ancient buildings, of whose real history and use no trustworthy\ntradition survives in local memory, have been easily furnished by myth\nwith a builder and a purpose. In Mexico the great Somebody assumes the\nname of Montezuma, and builds the aqueduct of Tezcuco; to the Persian\nany huge and antique ruin is the work of the heroic Antar; in Russia,\nsays Dr. Bastian, buildings of the most various ages are set down to\nPeter the Great, as in Spain to Boabdil or Charles V.; and European\nfolklore may attribute to the Devil any old building of unusual\nmassiveness, and especially those stone structures which antiquaries now\nclass as pr\u00e6-historic monuments. With a more graceful thought, the\nIndians of North America declare that the imitative tumuli of Ohio,\ngreat mounds laid out in rude imitation of animals, were shaped in old\ndays by the great Manitu himself, in promise of a plentiful supply of\ngame in the world of spirits. The New Zealanders tell how the hero Kupe\nseparated the North and South Islands, and formed Cook\u2019s Straits. Greek\nmyth placed at the gate of the Mediterranean the twin pillars of\nHerakles; in more recent times the opening of the Straits of Gibraltar\nbecame one of the many feats of Alexander of Macedon.[566] Such a group\nof stories as this is no unfair test of the value of mere traditions of\npersonal names which simply answer the questions that mankind have been\nasking for ages about the origin of their rites, laws, customs, arts.\nSome such traditions are of course genuine, and we may be able,\nespecially in the more modern cases, to separate the real from the\nimaginary. But it must be distinctly laid down that, in the absence of\ncorroborative evidence, every tradition stands suspect of mythology, if\nit can be made by the simple device of fitting some personal name to the\npurely theoretical assertion that somebody must have introduced into the\nworld fire-making, or weapons, or ornaments, or games, or agriculture,\nor marriage, or any other of the elements of civilization.\n\nAmong the various matters which have excited curiosity, and led to its\nsatisfaction by explanatory myths, are local names. These, when the\npopular ear has lost their primitive significance, become in barbaric\ntimes an apt subject for the myth-maker to explain in his peculiar\nfashion. Thus the Tibetans declare that their lake _Chomoriri_ was named\nfrom a woman (_chomo_) who was carried into it by the yak she was\nriding, and cried in terror _ri-ri!_ The Arabs say the founders of the\ncity of _Sennaar_ saw on the river bank a beautiful woman with teeth\nglittering like fire, whence they called the place _Sinn\u00e2r_, i.e.,\n\u2018tooth of fire.\u2019 The Arkadians derived the name of their town _Trapezus_\nfrom the table (_trapeza_), which Zeus overturned when the wolfish\nLykaon served a child on it for a banquet to him.[567] Such crude\nfancies in no way differ in nature from English local legends current up\nto recent times, such as that which relates how the Romans, coming in\nsight of where _Exeter_ now stands, exclaimed in delight, \u2018_Ecce\nterra!_\u2019 and thus the city had its name. Not long ago, a curious\nenquirer wished to know from the inhabitants of _Fordingbridge_, or as\nthe country people call it, _Fardenbridge_, what the origin of this name\nmight be, and heard in reply that the bridge was thought to have been\nbuilt when wages were so cheap that masons worked for a \u2018farden\u2019 a day.\nThe Falmouth folks\u2019 story of Squire Pendarvis and his ale is well known,\nhow his servant excused herself for selling it to the sailors, because,\nas she said, \u2018The _penny come_ so _quick_,\u2019 whence the place came to be\ncalled _Pennycomequick_; this nonsense being invented to account for an\nancient Cornish name, probably _Penycumgwic_, \u2018head of the creek\nvalley.\u2019 Mythic fancy had fallen to a low estate when it dwindled to\nsuch remnants as this.\n\nThat personal names may pass into nouns, we, who talk of _broughams_ and\n_bluchers_, cannot deny. But any such etymology ought to have\ncontemporary document or some equally forcible proof in its favour, for\nthis is a form of explanation taken by the most flagrant myths. David\nthe painter, it is related, had a promising pupil named _Chicque_, the\nson of a fruiterer; the lad died at eighteen, but his master continued\nto hold him up to later students as a model of artistic cleverness, and\nhence arose the now familiar term of _chic_. Etymologists, a race not\nwanting in effrontery, have hardly ever surpassed this circumstantial\ncanard; the word _chic_ dates at anyrate from the seventeenth\ncentury.[568] Another word with which similar liberty has been taken, is\n_cant_. Steele, in the \u2018Spectator,\u2019 says that some people derive it from\nthe name of one Andrew _Cant_, a Scotch minister, who had the gift of\npreaching in such a dialect that he was understood by none but his own\ncongregation, and not by all of them. This is, perhaps, not a very\naccurate delineation of the real Andrew Cant, who is mentioned in\n\u2018Whitelock\u2019s Memorials,\u2019 and seems to have known how to speak out in\nvery plain terms indeed. But at any rate he flourished about 1650,\nwhereas the verb to _cant_ was then already an old word. To _cante_,\nmeaning to speak, is mentioned in Harman\u2019s \u2018List of Rogues\u2019 Words,\u2019 in\n1566, and in 1587 Harrison says of the beggars and gypsies that they\nhave devised a language among themselves, which they name _canting_, but\nothers \u2018Pedlars\u2019 Frenche.\u2019[569] Of all etymologies ascribed to personal\nnames, one of the most curious is that of the Danse _Macabre_, or Dance\nof Death, so well known from Holbein\u2019s pictures. Its supposed author is\nthus mentioned in the \u2018Biographie Universelle:\u2019 \u2018Macaber, po\u00ebte\nallemand, serait tout-\u00e0-fait inconnu sans l\u2019ouvrage qu\u2019on a sous son\nnom.\u2019 This, it may be added, is true enough, for there never was such a\nperson at all, the Danse _Macabre_ being really Chorea _Machab\u00e6orum_,\nthe Dance of the _Maccabees_, a kind of pious pantomime of death\nperformed in churches in the fifteenth century. Why the performance\nreceived this name, is that the rite of Mass for the dead is\ndistinguished by the reading of that passage from the twelfth chapter of\nBook II. of the _Maccabees_, which relates how the people betook\nthemselves to prayer, and besought the Lord that the sin of those who\nhad been slain among them might be wholly blotted out; for if Judas had\nnot expected that the slain should rise again, it had been superfluous\nand vain to pray for the dead.[570] Traced to its origin, it is thus\nseen that the Danse _Macabre_ is neither more nor less than the Dance of\nthe Dead.\n\nIt is not an unusual thing for tribes and nations to be known by the\nname of their chief, as in books of African travel we read of \u2018Eyo\u2019s\npeople,\u2019 or \u2018Kamrazi\u2019s people.\u2019 Such terms may become permanent, like\nthe name of the _Osmanli_ Turks taken from the great _Othman_, or\n_Osman_. The notions of kinship and chieftainship may easily be\ncombined, as where some individual Brian or Alpine may have given his\nname to a clan of _O\u2019Briens_ or _Mac Alpines_. How far the tribal names\nof the lower races may have been derived from individual names of chiefs\nor forefathers, is a question on which distinct evidence is difficult to\nobtain. In Patagonia bands or subdivisions of tribes are designated by\nthe names of temporary chiefs, every roving party having such a leader,\nwho is sometimes even styled \u2018yank,\u2019 i.e. \u2018father.\u2019[571] The Zulus and\nMaoris were races who paid great attention to the traditional\ngenealogies of their clan-ancestors, who were, indeed, not only their\nkinsfolk but their gods; and they distinctly recognize the possibility\nof tribes being named from a deceased ancestor or chief. The Kafir tribe\nof _Ama-Xosa_ derives its name from a chief, _U-Xosa_;[572] and the\nMaori tribes of _Ngate-Wakaue_ and _Nga-Puhi_ claim descent from chiefs\ncalled _Wakaue_ and _Puhi_.[573] Around this nucleus of actuality,\nhowever, there gathers an enormous mass of fiction simulating its\neffects. The myth-maker, curious to know how many people or country\ngained its name, had only to conclude that it came from a great ancestor\nor ruler, and then the simple process of turning a national or local\ntitle into a personal name at once added a new genealogy to historical\ntradition. In some cases, the name of the imagined ancestor is invented\nin such form that the local or gentile name may stand as grammatically\nderived from it, as usually happens in real cases, like the derivation\nof _C\u00e6sarea_ from _C\u00e6sar_, or of the _Benedictines_ from _Benedict_. But\nin the fictitious genealogy or history of the myth-maker, the mere\nunaltered name of the nation, tribe, country, or city often becomes\nwithout more ado the name of the eponymic hero. It has to be remembered,\nmoreover, that countries and nations can be personified by an\nimaginative process which has not quite lost its sense in modern speech.\n_France_ is talked of by politicians as an individual being, with\nparticular opinions and habits, and may even be embodied as a statue or\npicture with suitable attributes. And if one were to say that\n_Britannia_ has two daughters, _Canada_ and _Australia_, or that she has\ngone to keep house for a decrepit old aunt called _India_, this would be\nadmitted as plain fact expressed in fantastic language. The invention of\nancestries from eponymic heroes or name-ancestors has, however, often\nhad a serious effect in corrupting historic truth, by helping to fill\nancient annals with swarms of fictitious genealogies. Yet, when surveyed\nin a large view, the nature of the eponymic fictions is patent and\nindisputable, and so regular are their forms, that we could scarcely\nchoose more telling examples of the consistent processes of imagination,\nas shown in the development of myths.\n\nThe great number of the eponymic ancestors of ancient Greek tribes and\nnations makes it easy to test them by comparison, and the test is a\ndestructive one. Treat the heroic genealogies they belong to as\ntraditions founded on real history, and they prove hopelessly\nindependent and incompatible; but consider them as mostly local and\ntribal myths and such independence and incompatibility become their\nproper features. Mr. Grote, whose tendency is to treat all myths as\nfictions not only unexplained but unexplainable, here makes an\nexception, tracing the eponymic ancestors from whom Greek cities and\ntribes derived their legendary parentage to mere embodied local and\ngentile names. Thus, of the fifty sons of Lyka\u00f4n, a whole large group\nconsists of personified cities of Arkadia, such as _Mantin\u00eaus_,\n_Phigalos_, _Tegeat\u00eas_, who, according to the simply inverting legend,\nare called founders of _Mantin\u00eaa_, _Phigalia_, _Tegea_. The father of\nKing \u00c6akos was Zeus, his mother his own personified land, _\u00c6gina_; the\ncity of _Myk\u00eanai_ had not only an ancestress _Myk\u00ean\u00ea_, but an eponymic\nancestor as well, _Myk\u00eaneus_. Long afterwards, medi\u00e6val Europe,\nstimulated by the splendid genealogies through which Rome had attached\nherself to Greece and the Greek gods and heroes, discovered the secret\nof rivalling them in the chronicles of Geoffry of Monmouth and others,\nby claiming as founders of _Paris_ and _Tours_ the Trojans _Paris_ and\n_Turnus_, and connecting _France_ and _Britain_ with the Trojan war\nthrough _Francus_, son of Hector, and _Brutus_, great grandson of \u00c6neas.\nA remarkably perfect eponymic historical myth accounting for the Gypsies\nor Egyptians, may be found cited seriously in \u2018Blackstone\u2019s\nCommentaries:\u2019 when Sultan Selim conquered Egypt in 1517, several of the\nnatives refused to submit to the Turkish yoke, and revolted under one\n_Zinganeus_, whence the Turks called them _Zinganees_, but, being at\nlength surrounded and banished, they agreed to disperse in small parties\nover the world, &c., &c. It is curious to watch Milton\u2019s mind emerging,\nbut not wholly emerging, from the state of the medi\u00e6val chronicler. He\nmentions in the beginning of his \u2018History of Britain,\u2019 the \u2018outlandish\nfigment\u2019 of the four kings, _Magus_, _Saron_, _Druis_, and _Bardus_; he\nhas no approval for the giant _Albion_, son of Neptune, who subdued the\nisland and called it after his own name; he scoffs at the four sons of\nJaphet, called _Francus_, _Romanus_, _Alemannus_, and _Britto_. But when\nhe comes to _Brutus_ and the Trojan legends of old English history, his\nsceptical courage fails him: \u2018those old and inborn names of successive\nkings, never any to have bin real persons, or don in their lives at\nleast som part of what so long hath bin remember\u2019d, cannot be thought\nwithout too strict an incredulity.\u2019[574]\n\nAmong ruder races of the world, asserted genealogies of this class may\nbe instanced in South American tribes called the _Amoipira_ and\n_Potyuara_,[575] Khond clans called _Baska_ and _Jakso_,[576] Turkoman\nhordes called _Yomut_, _Tekke_, and _Chaudor_,[577] all of them\nprofessing to derive their designations from ancestors or chiefs who\nbore as individuals these very names. Where criticism can be brought to\nbear on these genealogies, its effect is often such as drove Brutus and\nhis Trojans out of English history. When there appear in the genealogy\nof Haussa, in West Africa, plain names of towns like _Kano_ and\n_Katsena_,[578] it is natural to consider these towns to have been\npersonified into mythic ancestors. Mexican tradition assigns a whole set\nof eponymic ancestors or chiefs to the various races of the land, as\n_Mexi_ the founder of _Mexico_, _Chichimecatl_ the first king of the\n_Chichimecs_, and so forth, down to _Otomitl_ the ancestor of the\n_Otomis_, whose very name by its termination betrays its Aztec\ninvention.[579] The Brazilians account for the division of the _Tupis_\nand _Guaranis_, by the legend of two ancestral brothers, _Tupi_ and\n_Guarani_, who quarrelled and separated, each with his followers: here\nan eponymic origin of the story is made likely by the word _Guarani_ not\nbeing an old national name at all, but merely the designation of\n\u2018warriors\u2019 given by the missionaries to certain tribes.[580] And when\nsuch facts are considered as that North American clans named after\nanimals, _Beaver_, _Crayfish_, and the like, account for these names by\nsimply claiming the very creatures themselves as ancestors,[581] the\ntendency of general criticism will probably be not so much in favour of\nreal forefathers and chiefs who left their names to their tribes, as of\neponymic ancestors created by backwards imitation of such inheritance.\n\nThe examination of eponymic legend, however, must by no means stop short\nat the destructive stage. In fact, when it has undergone the sharpest\ncriticism, it only displays the more clearly a real historic value, not\nless perhaps than if all the names it records were real names of ancient\nchiefs. With all their fancies, blunders, and shortcomings, the heroic\ngenealogies preserve early theories of nationality, traditions of\nmigration, invasion, connexion by kindred or intercourse. The\nethnologists of old days, borrowing the phraseology of myth, stated what\nthey looked on as the actual relations of races, in a personifying\nlanguage of which the meaning may still be readily interpreted. The\nGreek legend of the twin brothers _Danaos_ and _\u00c6gyptos_, founders of\nthe nations of the _Danaoi_ or Homeric Greeks and of the _\u00c6gyptians_,\nrepresents a distinct though weak ethnological theory. Their eponymic\nmyth of _Hell\u0113n_, the personified race of the _Hell\u0113nes_, is another and\nmore reasonable ethnological document stating kinship among four great\nbranches of the Greek race: the three sons of _Hell\u0113n_, it relates, were\n_Aiolos_, _D\u014dros_, and _Xouthos_; the first two gave their names to the\n_\u00c6olians_ and _Dorians_, the third had sons called _Achaios_ and _I\u014dn_,\nwhose names passed as a heritage to the _Achaioi_ and _Ionians_. The\nbelief of the _Lydians_, _Mysians_, and _Karians_ as to their national\nkinship is well expressed in the genealogy in Herodotus, which traces\ntheir descent from the three brothers _Lydos_, _Mysos_, and _Kar_.[582]\nThe Persian legend of Feridun (Thraetaona) and his three sons, _Irej_,\n_Tur_, and _Selm_, distinguishes the two nationalities of _Iranian_ and\n_Turanian_, i.e. Persian and Tatar.[583] The national genealogy of the\nAfghans is worthy of remark. It runs thus: Melik Talut (King Saul) had\ntwo sons, Berkia and Irmia (Berekiah and Jeremiah), who served David;\nthe son of Berkia was _Afghan_, and the son of Irmia was _Usbek_. Thanks\nto the aquiline noses of the Afghans, and to their use of Biblical\npersonal names derived from Biblical sources, the idea of their being\ndescendants of the lost tribes of Israel found great credence among\nEuropean scholars up to the present century.[584] Yet the pedigree is\nethnologically absurd, for the whole source of the imagined cousinship\nof the Aryan _Afghan_ and the Turanian _Usbek_, so distinct both in\nfeature and in language, appears to be in their union by common\nMohammedanism, while the reckless jumble of sham history, which derives\nboth from a Semitic source, is only too characteristic of Moslem\nchronicle. Among the Tatars is found a much more reasonable national\npedigree; in the 13th century, William of Ruysbroek relates, as sober\ncircumstantial history, that they were originally called _Turks_ from\n_Turk_ the eldest son of Japhet, but one of their princes left his\ndominions to his twin sons, _Tatar_ and _Mongol_ which gave rise to the\ndistinction that has ever since prevailed between these two\nnations.[585] Historically absurd, this legend states what appears the\nunimpeachable ethnological fact, that the _Turks_, _Mongols_, and\n_Tatars_ are closely-connected branches of one national stock, and we\ncan only dispute in it what seems an exorbitant claim on the part of the\n_Turk_ to represent the head of the family, the ancestor of the _Mongol_\nand the _Tatar_. Thus these eponymic national genealogies, mythological\nin form but ethnological in substance, embody opinions of which we may\nadmit or deny the truth or value, but which we must recognize as\ndistinctly ethnological documents.[586]\n\nIt thus appears that early ethnology is habitually expressed in a\nmetaphorical language, in which lands and nations are personified, and\ntheir relations indicated by terms of personal kinship. This description\napplies to that important document of ancient ethnology, the table of\nnations in the 10th chapter of Genesis. In some cases it is a problem of\nminute and difficult criticism to distinguish among its ancestral names\nthose which are simply local or national designations in personal form.\nBut to critics conversant with the ethnic genealogies of other peoples,\nsuch as have here been quoted, simple inspection of this national list\nmay suffice to show that part of its names are not names of real men,\nbut of personified cities, lands, and races. The city _Zidon_ (\u05e6\u05d9\u05d3\u05df) is\nbrother to Heth (\u05d7\u05ea) the father of the _Hittites_, and next follow in\nperson the Jebusite and the Amorite. Among plain names of countries,\n_Cush_ or \u00c6thiopia (\u05db\u05d5\u05e9) begets Nimrod, _Asshur_ or _Assyria_ (\u05d0\u05e9\u05d5\u05e8)\nbuilds Nineveh, and even the dual _Mizraim_ (\u05de\u05e6\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd), the \u2018two Egypts,\u2019\nusually regarded as signifying Upper and Lower Egypt, appears in the\nline of generations as a personal son and brother of other countries,\nand ancestor of populations. The Aryan stock is clearly recognized in\npersonifications of at least two of its members, _Madai_ (\u05de\u05d3\u05d9) the\n_Mede_, and _Javan_ (\u05d9\u05d5\u05df) the _Ionian_. And as regards the family to\nwhich the Israelites themselves belong, if _Canaan_ (\u05db\u05e0\u05e2\u05df), the father\nof _Zidon_ (\u05e6\u05d9\u05d3\u05df), be transferred to it to represent the Ph\u0153nicians, by\nthe side of _Asshur_ (\u05d0\u05e9\u05d5\u05e8), _Aram_ (\u05d0\u05e8\u05dd), _Eber_ (\u05e2\u05d1\u05e8), and the other\ndescendants of Shem, the result will be mainly to arrange the Semitic\nstock according to the ordinary classification of modern comparative\nphilology.\n\nTurning now from cases where mythologic phrase serves as a medium for\nexpressing philosophic opinion, let us quickly cross the district where\nfancy assumes the semblance of explanatory legend. The medi\u00e6val\nschoolmen have been justly laughed at for their habit of translating\nplain facts into the terms of metaphysics, and then solemnly offering\nthem in this scientific guise as explanations of themselves\u2014accounting\nfor opium making people sleep, by its possession of a dormitive virtue.\nThe myth-maker\u2019s proceedings may in one respect be illustrated by\ncomparing them with this. Half mythology is occupied, as many a legend\ncited in these chapters has shown, in shaping the familiar facts of\ndaily life into imaginary histories of their own cause and origin,\nchildlike answers to those world-old questions of whence and why, which\nthe savage asks as readily as the sage. So familiar is the nature of\nsuch description in the dress of history, that its easier examples\ntranslate off-hand. When the Samoans say that ever since the great\nbattle among the plantains and bananas, the vanquished have hung down\ntheir heads, while the victor stands proudly erect,[587] who can mistake\nthe simple metaphor which compares the upright and the drooping plants\nto a conqueror standing among his beaten foes? In simile just as obvious\nlies the origin of another Polynesian legend, which relates the creation\nof the coco-nut from a man\u2019s head, the chestnuts from his kidneys, and\nthe yams from his legs.[588] To draw one more example from the mythology\nof plants, how transparent is the Ojibwa fancy of that heavenly youth\nwith green robe and waving feathers, whom for the good of men the Indian\novercame and buried, and who sprang again from his grave as the Indian\ncorn, Mondamin, the \u2018Spirit\u2019s grain.\u2019[589] The New Forest peasant deems\nthat the marl he digs is still red with the blood of his ancient foes\nthe Danes; the Maori sees on the red cliffs of Cook\u2019s Straits the\nblood-stains that Kupe made when, mourning for the death of his\ndaughter, he cut his forehead with pieces of obsidian; in the spot where\nBuddha offered his own body to feed the starved tigress\u2019s cubs, his\nblood for ever reddened the soil and the trees and flowers. The modern\nAlbanian still sees the stain of slaughter in streams running red with\nearth, as to the ancient Greek the river that flowed by Byblos bore down\nin its summer floods the red blood of Adonis. The Cornishman knows from\nthe red filmy growth on the brook pebbles that murder has been done\nthere; John the Baptist\u2019s blood still grows in Germany on his day, and\npeasants still go out to search for it; the red meal fungus is blood\ndropped by the flying Huns when they hurt their feet against the high\ntower-roofs. The traveller in India might see on the ruined walls of\nGanga Raja the traces of the blood of the citizens spilt in the siege,\nand yet more marvellous to relate, at St. Denis\u2019s church in Cornwall,\nthe blood-stains on the stones fell there when the saint\u2019s head was cut\noff somewhere else.[590] Of such translations of descriptive metaphor\nunder thin pretence of history, every collection of myth is crowded with\nexamples, but it strengthens our judgment of the combined consistency\nand variety of what may be called the mythic language, to extract from\nits dictionary such a group as this, which in variously imaginative\nfashion describes the appearance of a blood-red stain.\n\nThe merest shadowy fancy or broken-down metaphor, when once it gains a\nsense of reality, may begin to be spoken of as an actual event. The\nMoslems have heard the very stones praise Allah, not in simile only but\nin fact, and among them the saying that a man\u2019s fate is written on his\nforehead has been materialized into a belief that it can be deciphered\nfrom the letter-like markings of the sutures of his skull. One of the\nmiraculous passages in the life of Mohammed himself is traced plausibly\nby Sprenger to such a pragmatized metaphor. The angel Gabriel, legend\ndeclares, opened the prophet\u2019s breast, and took a black clot from his\nheart, which he washed with Zemzem water and replaced; details are given\nof the angel\u2019s dress and golden basin, and Anas ibn Malik declared he\nhad seen the very mark where the wound was sewn up. We may venture with\nthe historian to ascribe this marvellous incident to the familiar\nmetaphor that Mohammed\u2019s heart was divinely opened and cleansed, and\nindeed he does say in the Koran that God opened his heart.[591] A single\ninstance is enough to represent the same habit in Christian legend.\nMarco Polo relates how in 1225 the Khalif of Bagdad commanded the\nChristians of his dominions, under penalty of death or Islam, to justify\ntheir Scriptural text by removing a certain mountain. Now there was\namong them a shoemaker, who, having been tempted to excess of admiration\nfor a woman, had plucked out his offending eye. This man commanded the\nmountain to remove, which it did to the terror of the Khalif and all his\npeople, and since then the anniversary of the miracle has been kept\nholy. The Venetian traveller, after the manner of medi\u00e6val writers,\nrecords the story without a symptom of suspicion;[592] yet to our minds\nits whole origin so obviously lies in three verses of St. Matthew\u2019s\ngospel, that it is needless to quote them. To modern taste such wooden\nfictions as these are far from attractive. In fact the pragmatizer is a\nstupid creature; nothing is too beautiful or too sacred to be made dull\nand vulgar by his touch, for it is through the very incapacity of his\nmind to hold an abstract idea that he is forced to embody it in a\nmaterial incident. Yet wearisome as he may be, it is none the less\nneedful to understand him, to acknowledge the vast influence he has had\non the belief of mankind, and to appreciate him as representing in its\nextreme abuse that tendency to clothe every thought in a concrete shape,\nwhich has in all ages been a mainspring of mythology.\n\nThough allegory cannot maintain the large place often claimed for it in\nmythology, it has yet had too much influence to be passed over in this\nsurvey. It is true that the search for allegorical explanation is a\npursuit that has led many a zealous explorer into the quagmires of\nmysticism. Yet there are cases in which allegory is certainly used with\nhistorical intent, as for instance in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, with\nits cows and sheep which stand for Israelites, and asses and wolves for\nMidianites and Egyptians, these creatures figuring in a pseudo-prophetic\nsketch of Old Testament chronicles. As for moral allegory, it is\nimmensely plentiful in the world, although its limits are narrower than\nmythologists of past centuries have supposed. It is now reasonably\nthought preposterous to interpret the Greek legends as moral apologues,\nafter the manner of Herakleides the philosopher, who could discern a\nparable of repentant prudence in Athene seizing Achilles when just about\nto draw his sword on Agamemnon.[593] Still, such a mode of\ninterpretation has thus much to justify it, that numbers of the fanciful\nmyths of the world are really allegories. There is allegory in the\nHesiodic myth of Pandora, whom Zeus sent down to men, decked with golden\nband and garland of spring flowers, fit cause of longing and the pangs\nof love, but using with a dog-like mind her gifts of lies and treachery\nand pleasant speech. Heedless of his wiser brother\u2019s words, the foolish\nEpimetheus took her; she raised the lid of the great cask and shook out\nthe evils that wander among mankind, and the diseases that by day and\nnight come silently bringing ill; she set on the lid again and shut hope\nin, that evil might be ever hopeless to mankind. Shifted to fit a\ndifferent moral, the allegory remained in the later version of the tale,\nthat the cask held not curses but blessings; these were let go and lost\nto men when the vessel was too curiously opened, while Hope alone was\nleft behind for comfort to the luckless human race.[594] Yet the\nprimitive nature of such legends underlies the moral shape upon them.\nZeus is no allegoric fiction, and Prometheus, unless modern mythologists\njudge him very wrongly, has a meaning far deeper than parable. Xenophon\ntells after Prodikos the story of Herakles choosing between the short\nand easy path of pleasure and the long and toilsome path of virtue,[595]\nbut though the mythic hero may thus be made to figure in a moral\napologue, an imagination so little in keeping with his unethic nature\njars upon the reader\u2019s mind.\n\nThe general relation of allegory to pure myth can hardly be brought more\nclearly into view than in a class of stories familiar to every child,\nthe Beast-fables. From the ordinary civilized point of view the allegory\nin such fictions seems fundamental, the notion of a moral lesson seems\nbound up with their very nature, yet a broader examination tends to\nprove the allegorical growth as it were parasitic on an older trunk of\nmyth without moral. It is only by an effort of intellectual reaction\nthat a modern writer can imitate in parable the beast of the old\nBeast-fable. No wonder, for the creature has become to his mind a\nmonster, only conceivable as a caricature of man made to carry a moral\nlesson or a satire. But among savages it is not so. To their minds the\nsemi-human beast is no fictitious creature, invented to preach or sneer,\nhe is all but a reality. Beast-fables are not nonsense to men who\nascribe to the lower animals a power of speech, and look on them as\npartaking of moral human nature; to men in whose eyes any hy\u00e6na or wolf\nmay probably be a man-hy\u00e6na or a werewolf; to men who so utterly believe\n\u2018that the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird\u2019 that they will\nreally regulate their own diet so as to avoid eating an ancestor; to men\nan integral part of whose religion may actually be the worship of\nbeasts. Such beliefs belong even now to half mankind, and among such the\nbeast-stories had their first home. Even the Australians tell their\nquaint beast-tales, of the Rat, the Owl, and the fat Blackfellow, or of\nPussy-brother who singed his friends\u2019 noses while they were asleep.[596]\nThe Kamchadals have an elaborate myth of the adventures of their stupid\ndeity Kutka with the Mice who played tricks upon him, such as painting\nhis face like a woman\u2019s, so that when he looked in the water he fell in\nlove with himself.[597] Beast-tales abound among such races as the\nPolynesians and the North American Indians, who value in them ingenuity\nof incident and neat adaptation of the habits and characters of the\ncreatures. Thus in a legend of the Flathead Indians, the Little Wolf\nfound in Cloudland his grandsires the Spiders with their grizzled hair\nand long crooked nails, and they spun balls of thread to let him down to\nearth; when he came down and found his wife the Speckled Duck, whom the\nOld Wolf had taken from him, she fled in confusion, and that is why she\nlives and dives alone to this very day.[598] In Guinea, where\nbeast-fable is one of the great staples of native conversation, the\nfollowing story is told as a type of the tales which in this way account\nfor peculiarities of animals. The great Engena-monkey offered his\ndaughter to be bride of the champion who should perform the feat of\ndrinking a whole barrel of rum. The dignified Elephant, the graceful\nLeopard, the surly Boar, tried the first mouthful of the fire-water, and\nretreated. Then the tiny Telinga-monkey came, who had cunningly hidden\nin the long grass thousands of his fellows; he took his first glass and\nwent away, but instead of his coming back, another just like him came\nfor the second, and so on till the barrel was emptied and Telinga walked\noff with the Monkey-king\u2019s daughter. But in the narrow path the Elephant\nand Leopard attacked him and drove him off and he took refuge in the\nhighest boughs of the trees, vowing never more to live on the ground and\nsuffer such violence and injustice. This is why to this day the little\ntelingas are only found in the highest tree-tops.[599] Such stories have\nbeen collected by scores from savage tradition in their original state,\nwhile as yet no moral lesson has entered into them. Yet the easy and\nnatural transition from the story into the parable is made among\nsavages, perhaps without help from higher races. In the Hottentot Tales,\nside by side with the myth of the cunning Jackal tricking the Lion out\nof the best of the carcase, and getting the black stripe burnt on his\nown back by carrying off the Sun, there occurs the moral apologue of the\nLion who thought himself wiser than his Mother, and perished by the\nHunter\u2019s spear, for want of heed to her warning against the deadly\ncreature whose head is in a line with his breast and shoulders.[600] So\nthe Zulus have a thorough moral apologue in the story of the hyrax, who\ndid not go to fetch his tail on the day when tails were given out,\nbecause he did not like to be out in the rain; he only asked the other\nanimals to bring it for him, and so he never got it.[601] Among the\nNorth American legends of Manabozho, there is a fable quite \u00c6sopian in\nits humour. Manabozho, transformed into a Wolf, killed a fat moose, and\nbeing very hungry sat down to eat. But he fell into great doubts as to\nwhere to begin, for, said he, if I begin at the head, people will laugh\nand say, he ate him backwards, but if I begin at the side they will say,\nhe ate him sideways. At last he made up his mind, and was just putting a\ndelicate piece into his mouth, when a tree close by creaked. Stop, stop!\nsaid he to the tree, I cannot eat with such a noise, and in spite of his\nhunger he left the meat and climbed up to quiet the creaking, but was\ncaught between two branches and held fast, and presently he saw a pack\nof wolves coming. Go that way! Go that way! he cried out, whereupon the\nwolves said, he must have something there, or he would not tell us to go\nanother way. So they came on, and found the moose, and ate it to the\nbones while Manabozho looked wistfully on. The next heavy blast of wind\nopened the branches and let him out, and he went home thinking to\nhimself, \u2018See the effect of meddling with frivolous things when I had\ncertain good in my possession.\u2019[602]\n\nIn the Old World, the moral Beast-fable was of no mean antiquity, but it\ndid not at once supplant the animal-myths pure and simple. For ages the\nEuropean mind was capable at once of receiving lessons of wisdom from\nthe \u00c6sopian crows and foxes, and of enjoying artistic but by no means\nedifying beast-stories of more primitive type. In fact the Babrius and\nPh\u00e6drus collections were over a thousand years old, when the genuine\nBeast-Epic reached its fullest growth in the incomparable \u2018Reynard the\nFox,\u2019 traceable in Jakob Grimm\u2019s view to an original Frankish\ncomposition of the 12th century, itself containing materials of far\nearlier date.[603] Reynard is not a didactic poem, at least if a moral\nhangs on to it here and there it is oftenest a Macchiavellian one; nor\nis it essentially a satire, sharply as it lashes men in general and the\nclergy in particular. Its creatures are incarnate qualities, the Fox of\ncunning, the Bear of strength, the Ass of dull content, the Sheep of\nguilelessness. The charm of the narrative, which every class in medi\u00e6val\nEurope delighted in, but which we have allowed to drop out of all but\nscholars\u2019 knowledge, lies in great measure in he cleverly sustained\ncombination of the beast\u2019s nature and the man\u2019s. How great the influence\nof the Reynard Epic was in the middle ages, may be judged from\n_Reynard_, _Bruin_, _Chanticleer_, being still names familiar to people\nwho have no idea of their having been originally names of the characters\nin the great beast-fable. Even more remarkable are its traces in modern\nFrench. The donkey has its name of _baudet_ from _Baudoin_, Baldwin the\nAss. Common French dictionaries do not even contain the word _goupil_\n(_vulpes_), so effectually has the Latin name of the fox been driven out\nof use by his Frankish title in the Beast-Epic, _Raginhard_ the\nCounsellor, _Reinhart_, _Reynard_, _Renart_, _renard_. The moralized\napologues like \u00c6sop\u2019s which Grimm contemptuously calls \u2018fables thinned\ndown to mere moral and allegory,\u2019 \u2018a fourth watering of the old grapes\ninto an insipid moral infusion,\u2019 are low in \u00e6sthetic quality as compared\nwith the genuine beast-myths. Mythological critics will be apt to judge\nthem after the manner of the child who said how convenient it was to\nhave \u2018Moral\u2019 printed in \u00c6sop\u2019s fables, that everybody might know what to\nskip.\n\nThe want of power of abstraction which has ever had such disastrous\neffect on the beliefs of mankind, confounding myth and chronicle, and\ncrushing the spirit of history under the rubbish of literalized\ntradition, comes very clearly into view in the study of parable. The\nstate of mind of the deaf, dumb, and blind Laura Bridgman, so\ninstructive in illustrating the mental habits of uneducated though\nfull-sensed men, displays in an extreme form the difficulty such men\nhave in comprehending the unreality of any story. She could not be made\nto see that arithmetical problems were anything but statements of\nconcrete fact, and when her teacher asked her, \u2018If you can buy a barrel\nof cider for four dollars, how much can you buy for one dollar?\u2019 she\nreplied quite simply, \u2018I cannot give much for cider, because it is very\nsour.\u2019[604] It is a surprising instance of this tendency to concretism,\nthat among people so civilized as the Buddhists, the most obviously\nmoral beast-fables have become literal incidents of sacred history.\nGautama, during his 550 jatakas or births, took the form of a frog, a\nfish, a crow, an ape, and various other animals, and so far were the\nlegends of these transformations from mere myth to his followers, that\nthere have been preserved as relics in Buddhist temples the hair,\nfeathers, and bones of the creatures whose bodies the great teacher\ninhabited. Now among the incidents which happened to Buddha during his\nseries of animal births, he appeared as an actor in the familiar fable\nof the Fox and the Stork, and it was he who, when he was a Squirrel, set\nan example of parental virtue by trying to dry up the ocean with his\ntail, to save his young ones whose nest had drifted out to sea, till his\npersevering courage was rewarded by a miracle.[605] To our modern minds,\na moral which seems the very purpose of a story is evidence unfavourable\nto its truth as fact. But if even apologues of talking birds and beasts\nhave not been safe from literal belief, it is clear that the most\nevident moral can have been but slight protection to parables told of\npossible and life-like men. It was not a needless precaution to state\nexplicitly of the New Testament parables that they were parables, and\neven this guard has not availed entirely. Mrs. Jameson relates some\ncurious experience in the following passage:\u2014\u2018I know that I was not very\nyoung when I entertained no more doubt of the substantial existence of\nLazarus and Dives than of John the Baptist and Herod; when the Good\nSamaritan was as real a personage as any of the Apostles; when I was\nfull of sincerest pity for those poor foolish Virgins who had forgotten\nto trim their lamps, and thought them\u2014in my secret soul\u2014rather hardly\ntreated. This impression of the literal actual truth of the parables I\nhave since met with in many children, and in the uneducated but devout\nhearers and readers of the Bible; and I remember that when I once tried\nto explain to a good old woman the proper meaning of the word parable,\nand that the story of the Prodigal Son was not a fact, she was\nscandalized\u2014she was quite sure that Jesus would never have told anything\nto his disciples that was not true. Thus she settled the matter in her\nown mind, and I thought it best to leave it there undisturbed.\u2019[606]\nNor, it may be added, has such realization been confined to the minds of\nthe poor and ignorant. St. Lazarus, patron saint of lepers and their\nhospitals, and from whom the _lazzarone_ and the _lazzaretto_ take their\nname, obviously derives these qualities from the Lazarus of the parable.\n\nThe proof of the force and obstinacy of the mythic faculty, thus given\nby the relapse of parable into pseudo-history, may conclude this\ndissertation on mythology. In its course there have been examined the\nprocesses of animating and personifying nature, the formation of legend\nby exaggeration and perversion of fact, the stiffening of metaphor by\nmistaken realization of words, the conversion of speculative theories\nand still less substantial fictions into pretended traditional events,\nthe passage of myth into miracle-legend, the definition by name and\nplace given to any floating imagination, the adaptation of mythic\nincident as moral example, and the incessant crystallization of story\ninto history. The investigation of these intricate and devious\noperations has brought ever more and more broadly into view two\nprinciples of mythologic science. The first is that legend, when\nclassified on a sufficient scale, displays a regularity of development\nwhich the notion of motiveless fancy quite fails to account for, and\nwhich must be attributed to laws of formation whereby every story, old\nand new, has arisen from its definite origin and sufficient cause. So\nuniform indeed is such development, that it becomes possible to treat\nmyth as an organic product of mankind at large, in which individual,\nnational, and even racial distinctions stand subordinate to universal\nqualities of the human mind. The second principle concerns the relation\nof myth to history. It is true that the search for mutilated and\nmystified traditions of real events, which formed so main a part of old\nmythological researches, seems to grow more hopeless the farther the\nstudy of legend extends. Even the fragments of real chronicle found\nembedded in the mythic structure are mostly in so corrupt a state, that,\nfar from their elucidating history, they need history to elucidate them.\nYet unconsciously, and as it were in spite of themselves, the shapers\nand transmitters of poetic legend have preserved for us masses of sound\nhistorical evidence. They moulded into mythic lives of gods and heroes\ntheir own ancestral heirlooms of thought and word, they displayed in the\nstructure of their legends the operations of their own minds, they\nplaced on record the arts and manners, the philosophy and religion of\ntheir own times, times of which formal history has often lost the very\nmemory. Myth is the history of its authors, not of its subjects; it\nrecords the lives, not of superhuman heroes, but of poetic nations.\n\nFootnote 500:\n\n  Hamilton in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 344; Colebrooke, ibid. vol. iv. p.\n  385; Earl in \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 682; vol. iv. p. 9.\n  See Renaudot, \u2018Travels of Two Mahommedans,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p.\n  183.\n\nFootnote 501:\n\n  F. Buckland, \u2018Curiosities of Nat. Hist.\u2019 3rd series, vol. ii. p. 39.\n\nFootnote 502:\n\n  Andrew Boorde, \u2018Introduction of Knowledge,\u2019 ed. by F. J. Furnivall,\n  Early Eng. Text Soc. 1870, p. 133.\n\nFootnote 503:\n\n  \u00c6lian, De Nat. Animal, v. 2, see 8.\n\nFootnote 504:\n\n  Acta Sanctorum Bolland. Jan. xvi.\n\nFootnote 505:\n\n  \u2018Acts of Peter and Paul,\u2019 trans. by A. Walker, in Ante-Nicene Library,\n  vol. xvi. p. 257; F. F. Tuckett in \u2018Nature,\u2019 Oct. 20, 1870. See Lyell,\n  \u2018Principles of Geology,\u2019 ch. xxx.; Phillips, \u2018Vesuvius,\u2019 p. 244.\n\nFootnote 506:\n\n  Lane, \u2018Thousand and One N.\u2019 vol. i. pp. 161, 217; vol. iii. p. 78;\n  Hole, \u2018Remarks on the Ar. N.\u2019 p. 104; Heinrich von Veldeck, \u2018Herzog\n  Ernst\u2019s von Bayern Erh\u00f6hung, &c.\u2019 ed. Rixner, Amberg, 1830, p. 65; see\n  Ludlow, \u2018Popular Epics of Middle Ages,\u2019 p. 221.\n\nFootnote 507:\n\n  Sir John Maundevile, \u2018Voiage and Travaile.\u2019\n\nFootnote 508:\n\n  Sir Thomas Browne, \u2018Vulgar Errours,\u2019 ii. 3.\n\nFootnote 509:\n\n  \u2018M\u00e9moires conc. l\u2019Hist., &c., des Chinois,\u2019 vol. iv. p. 457. Compare\n  the story of the magnetic (?) horseman in \u2018Thousand and One N.\u2019 vol.\n  iii. p. 119, with the old Chinese mention of magnetic cars with a\n  movable-armed pointing figure, A. v. Humboldt, \u2018Asie Centrale,\u2019 vol.\n  i. p. xl.; Goguet, vol. iii. p. 284. (The loadstone mountain has its\n  power from a turning brazen horseman on the top.)\n\nFootnote 510:\n\n  Brasseur, \u2018Popol Vuh,\u2019 pp. 23-31. Compare this Central American myth\n  of the ancient senseless mannikins who become monkeys, with a\n  Pottowatomi legend in Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part i. p. 320.\n\nFootnote 511:\n\n  Dos Santos, \u2018Ethiopia Oriental,\u2019 Evora, 1609, part i. chap. ix.;\n  Callaway, \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. p. 177. See also Burton, \u2018Footsteps in\n  E. Afr.\u2019 p. 274; Waitz, \u2018Anthropologie,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 178 (W. Afr.).\n\nFootnote 512:\n\n  D\u2019Orbigny, \u2018L\u2019Homme Am\u00e9ricain,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 102.\n\nFootnote 513:\n\n  Weil, \u2018Bibl. Leg. der Muselm\u00e4nner,\u2019 p. 267; Lane, \u2018Thousand and One\n  N.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 350; Burton, \u2018El Medinah, &c.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 343.\n\nFootnote 514:\n\n  Ovid, \u2018Metamm.\u2019 xiv. 89-100; Welcker, \u2018Griechische G\u00f6tterlehre,\u2019 vol.\n  iii. p. 108.\n\nFootnote 515:\n\n  Campbell in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1866, part ii. p. 132; Latham,\n  \u2018Descr. Eth.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 456; Tod, \u2018Annals of Rajasthan,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  114.\n\nFootnote 516:\n\n  Bourien in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 73; see \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019\n  vol. ii. p. 271.\n\nFootnote 517:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 435; \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. pp.\n  347, 349, 387, Koeppen, vol. ii. p. 44; J. J. Schmidt, \u2018V\u00f6lker\n  Mittel-Asiens,\u2019 p. 210.\n\nFootnote 518:\n\n  Froebel, \u2018Central America,\u2019 p. 220; see Bosman, \u2018Guinea,\u2019 in\n  Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 401. For other traditions of human descent\n  from apes, see Farrar, \u2018Chapters on Language,\u2019 p. 45.\n\nFootnote 519:\n\n  Bosman, \u2018Guinea,\u2019 p. 440; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 178; Cauche, \u2018Relation de\n  Madagascar,\u2019 p. 127; Dobrizhoffer, \u2018Abipones,\u2019 vol. i. p. 288;\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 44; Pouchet, \u2018Plurality of Human Race,\u2019\n  p. 22.\n\nFootnote 520:\n\n  Monboddo, \u2018Origin and Progress of Lang.\u2019 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 277; Du\n  Chaillu, \u2018Equatorial Africa,\u2019 p. 61; St. John, \u2018Forests of Far East,\u2019\n  vol. i. p. 17; vol. ii. p. 239.\n\nFootnote 521:\n\n  Max M\u00fcller in Bunsen, \u2018Phil. Univ. Hist.\u2019 vol. i. p. 340; \u2018Journ. As.\n  Soc. Bengal,\u2019 vol. xxiv. p. 207. See Marsden in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. iv. p.\n  226; Fitch in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 415; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019\n  vol. i. p. 465; vol. ii. p. 201.\n\nFootnote 522:\n\n  Ayeen Akbaree, trans. by Gladwin; \u2018Report of Ethnological Committee\n  Jubbulpore Exhibition, 1866-7,\u2019 part i. p. 3. See the mention of the\n  _ban-manush_ in \u2018Kumaon and Nepal,\u2019 Campbell; \u2018Ethnology of India,\u2019 in\n  \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1866, part ii. p. 46.\n\nFootnote 523:\n\n  Marsden, \u2018Sumatra,\u2019 p. 41.\n\nFootnote 524:\n\n  Logan in \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p. 246; vol. iii. p. 490;\n  Thomson, ibid. vol. i. p. 350; Crawfurd, ibid. vol. iv. p. 186.\n\nFootnote 525:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 123; vol. iii. p. 435.\n\nFootnote 526:\n\n  Martius, \u2018Ethnog. Amer.\u2019 vol. i. pp. 425, 471.\n\nFootnote 527:\n\n  Its analogue is _bosjesbok_, \u2018bush-goat,\u2019 the African antelope. The\n  derivation of the _Bosjesman\u2019s_ name from his nest-like shelter in a\n  bush, given by Kolben and others since, is newer and far-fetched.\n\nFootnote 528:\n\n  Martius, vol. i. p. 50.\n\nFootnote 529:\n\n  Humboldt and Bonpland, vol. v. p. 81; Southey, \u2018Brazil,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  xxx.; Bates, \u2018Amazons,\u2019 vol. i. p. 73; vol. ii. p. 204.\n\nFootnote 530:\n\n  Castelnau, \u2018Exp. dans l\u2019Am\u00e9r. du Sud,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 118. See Martius,\n  vol. i. pp. 248, 414, 563, 633.\n\nFootnote 531:\n\n  Petherick, \u2018Egypt, &c.\u2019 p. 367.\n\nFootnote 532:\n\n  Southey, \u2018Brazil,\u2019 vol. i. p. 685; Martius, vol. i. pp. 425, 633.\n\nFootnote 533:\n\n  Krapf, p. 142; Baker, \u2018Albert Nyanza,\u2019 vol. i. p. 83; St. John, vol.\n  i. pp. 51, 405; and others.\n\nFootnote 534:\n\n  Lockhart, \u2018Abor. of China,\u2019 in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 181.\n\nFootnote 535:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 358; vol. iv. p. 374; Cameron,\n  \u2018Malayan India,\u2019 p. 120; Marsden, p. 7; Antonio Galvano, pp. 120, 218.\n\nFootnote 536:\n\n  Davis, \u2018Carthage,\u2019 p. 230; Bostock and Riley\u2019s Pliny (Bohn\u2019s ed.),\n  vol. ii. p. 134, note.\n\nFootnote 537:\n\n  Francisque-Michel, \u2018Races Maudites,\u2019 vol. i. p. 17; \u2018Argot,\u2019 p. 349;\n  Fernan Caballero, \u2018La Gaviota,\u2019 vol. i. p. 59.\n\nFootnote 538:\n\n  Horne Tooke, \u2018Diversions of Purley,\u2019 vol. i. p. 397.\n\nFootnote 539:\n\n  Baring-Gould, \u2018Myths,\u2019 p. 137.\n\nFootnote 540:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p. 252; Backhouse, \u2018Austr.\u2019 p. 557; Purchas,\n  vol. iv. p. 1290; De Laet, \u2018Novus Orbis,\u2019 p. 543.\n\nFootnote 541:\n\n  For various other stories of tailed men, see \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. iii. p.\n  149; \u2018Mem. Anthrop. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 454; \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol.\n  iii. p. 261, &c. (Nicobar Islands); Klemm, \u2018C. G.\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 246,\n  316 (Sarytschew Is.); \u2018Letters of Columbus,\u2019 Hakluyt Soc. p. 11\n  (Cuba), &c., &c.\n\nFootnote 542:\n\n  Details of monstrous tribes have been in past centuries specially\n  collected in the following works: \u2018Anthropometamorphosis: Man\n  Transformed, or the Artificiall Changeling, &c.,\u2019 scripsit J. B.\n  cognomento Chirosophus, M.D., London, 1653; Calovius, \u2018De\n  Thaumatanthropologia, vera pariter atque ficta tractatus\n  historico-physicus,\u2019 Rostock, 1685; J. A. Fabricius, \u2018Dissertatio de\n  hominibus orbis nostri incolis, &c.,\u2019 Hamburg, 1721. Only a few\n  principal references are here given.\n\nFootnote 543:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 ch. xvii. xviii.; Nilsson, \u2018Primitive Inhabitants of\n  Scandinavia,\u2019 ch. vi.; Hanusch, \u2018Slaw. Myth.\u2019 pp. 230, 325-7; Wuttke,\n  \u2018Volksabergl.\u2019 p. 231.\n\nFootnote 544:\n\n  \u2018Chronique de Tabari,\u2019 tr. Dubeux, part i. ch. viii. See Koran, xviii.\n  92.\n\nFootnote 545:\n\n  Pigafetta in Pinkerton, vol. xi. p. 314. See Blumenbach, \u2018De Generis\n  Human\u00e6 Varietate;\u2019 Fitzroy, \u2018Voy. of Adventure and Beagle,\u2019 vol. i.;\n  Waitz, \u2018Anthropologie,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 488.\n\nFootnote 546:\n\n  Knivet in Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1231; compare Humboldt and Bonpland,\n  vol. v. p. 564, with Martius, \u2018Ethnog. Amer.\u2019 p. 424; see also Krapf,\n  \u2018East Africa,\u2019 p. 51; Du Chaillu, \u2018Ashango-land,\u2019 p. 319.\n\nFootnote 547:\n\n  \u2018Early Hist. of Mankind,\u2019 ch. xi.; Hunt, \u2018Pop. Rom.\u2019 1st series, pp.\n  18, 304.\n\nFootnote 548:\n\n  Squier, \u2018Abor. Monuments of N. Y.\u2019 p. 68; Long\u2019s \u2018Exp.\u2019 vol. i. pp.\n  62, 275; Hersart de Villemarqu\u00e9, \u2018Chants Populaires de la Bretagne,\u2019\n  p. liv., 35; Meadows Taylor in \u2018Journ. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 157.\n\nFootnote 549:\n\n  Gul. de Rubruquis in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 69; Lane, \u2018Thousand and\n  One N.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 81, 91, see 24, 52, 97; Hole, p. 63; Marco Polo,\n  book iii. ch. xii.\n\nFootnote 550:\n\n  Benjamin of Tudela, \u2018Itinerary,\u2019 ed. and tr. by Asher, 83; Plin. vii.\n  2. See Max M\u00fcller in Bunsen \u2018Philos. Univ. Hist.,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 346,\n  358.\n\nFootnote 551:\n\n  Plin. iv. 27; Mela, iii. 6; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 120;\n  vol. ii. p. 93; St. John, vol. ii. p. 117; Marsden, p. 53; Lane,\n  \u2018Thousand and One N.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 92, 305; Petherick, \u2018Egypt, &c.\u2019\n  p. 367; Burton, \u2018Central Afr.\u2019 vol. i. p. 235; Pedro Simon, \u2018Indias\n  Occidentales,\u2019 p. 7.\n\nFootnote 552:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol i. p. 133.\n\nFootnote 553:\n\n  Marco Polo, book iii. ch. xviii.\n\nFootnote 554:\n\n  \u00c6lian, iv. 46; Plin. vi. 35; vii. 2. See for other versions, Purchas,\n  vol. iv. p. 1191; vol. v. p. 901; Cranz, p. 267; Lane, \u2018Thousand and\n  One Nights,\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 36, 94, 97, 305; Davis, \u2018Carthage,\u2019 p. 230;\n  Latham, \u2018Descr. Eth.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 83.\n\nFootnote 555:\n\n  Plin. v. 8; vi. 24, 35; vii. 2; Mela, iii. 9; Herberstein in Hakluyt,\n  vol. i. p. 593; Latham, \u2018Descr. Eth.\u2019 vol. i. p. 483; Davis, l.c.; see\n  \u2018Early Hist. of Mankind,\u2019 p. 77.\n\nFootnote 556:\n\n  Plin. v. 8; Lane, vol. i. p. 33; vol. ii. p. 377; vol. iii. p. 81;\n  Eisenmenger, vol. ii. p. 559; Mandeville, p. 243; Raleigh in Hakluyt,\n  vol. iii. pp. 652, 665; Humboldt and Bonpland, vol. v. p. 176;\n  Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1285; vol. v. p. 901; Isidor. Hispal. s.v.\n  \u2018Acephali;\u2019 Vamb\u00e9ry, p. 310, see p. 436.\n\nFootnote 557:\n\n  Lane, vol. i. p. 33; Callaway, \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 199, 202.\n  Virg. \u00c6n. viii. 194; a similar metaphor is the name of the _Nimchas_,\n  from Persian nim\u2014half, \u2018Journ. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 192, cf. French\n  _demi-monde_. Compare the \u2018one-legged\u2019 tribes, Plin. vii. 2;\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iii. p. 521; Charlevoix, vol. i. p.\n  25. The Australians use the metaphor \u2018of one leg\u2019 (matta gyn) to\n  describe tribes as of one stock, G. F. Moore, \u2018Vocab.\u2019 pp. 5, 71.\n\nFootnote 558:\n\n  Hayton in Purchas, vol. iii. p. 108; see Klemm, \u2018C. G.\u2019 vol. vi. p.\n  129; Vamb\u00e9ry, p. 49; Homer. Odyss. ix.; Strabo, i. 2, 12; see\n  Scherzer, \u2018Voy. of Novara,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 40; C. J. Andersson, \u2018Lake\n  Ngami, &c.,\u2019 p. 453; Du Chaillu, \u2018Equatorial Africa,\u2019 p. 440; Sir J.\n  Richardson, \u2018Polar Regions,\u2019 p. 300. For tribes with more than two\n  eyes, see Pliny\u2019s metaphorically explained Nisac\u00e6th\u00e6 and Nisyti, Plin.\n  vi. 35; also Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 414; \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol.\n  i. pp. 25, 76; Petherick, l.c.; Bowen, \u2018Yoruba Gr.\u2019 p. xx.; Schirren,\n  p. 196.\n\nFootnote 559:\n\n  K\u00f6lle, \u2018Vei Gr.\u2019 p. 229; Strabo, i. 2, 35. The artificially elongated\n  skulls of real \u039c\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03ba\u03ad\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 (Hippokrates, \u2018De Aeris,\u2019 14.) are found\n  in the burial-places of Kertch.\n\nFootnote 560:\n\n  Plin., vii. 2.; Humboldt and Bonpland, vol. v. p. 81.\n\nFootnote 561:\n\n  Krapf, p. 359.\n\nFootnote 562:\n\n  Southey, \u2018Brazil,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 390.\n\nFootnote 563:\n\n  D. Wilson, \u2018Arch\u00e6ology, &c. of Scotland,\u2019 p. 123.\n\nFootnote 564:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 128; Livingstone, p. 532.\n\nFootnote 565:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 p. 160; Seemann, \u2018Viti,\u2019 p. 113; Turner,\n  \u2018Polynesia,\u2019 p. 182 (a similar legend told by the Samoans). Another\n  tattooing legend in Latham, \u2018Descr. Eth.\u2019 vol. i. p. 152; Bastian,\n  \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 112.\n\nFootnote 566:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 167-8; Wilkinson in Rawlinson\u2019s\n  \u2018Herodotus,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 79; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 972-6; W. G. Palgrave,\n  \u2018Arabia,\u2019 vol. i. p. 251; Squier and Davis, \u2018Monuments of Mississippi\n  Valley,\u2019 p. 134; Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 258.\n\nFootnote 567:\n\n  Latham, \u2018Descr. Eth.\u2019 vol. i. p. 43; Lejean in \u2018Rev. des Deux Mondes,\u2019\n  15 Feb. 1862, p. 856; Apollodor. iii. 8. Compare the derivation of\n  _Arequipa_ by the Peruvians from the words _ari! quepay_== \u2018yes!\n  remain,\u2019 said to have been addressed to the colonists by the Inca:\n  Markham, \u2018Quichua Gr. and Dic.;\u2019 also the supposed etymology of\n  _Dahome_, _Danh-ho-men_== \u2018on the belly of Danh,\u2019 from the story of\n  King Dako building his palace on the body of the conquered King Danh:\n  Burton, in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 401.\n\nFootnote 568:\n\n  Charnock, \u2018Verba Nominalia,\u2019 s.v. \u2018chic;\u2019 see Francisque-Michel,\n  \u2018Argot,\u2019 s.v.\n\nFootnote 569:\n\n  \u2018Spectator,\u2019 No. 147; Brand, \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 93; Hotten,\n  \u2018Slang Dictionary,\u2019 p. 3; Charnock, s.v. \u2018cant.\u2019 As to the real\n  etymology, that from the beggar\u2019s whining _chaunt_ is defective, for\n  the beggar drops this tone exactly when he _cants_, i.e., talks jargon\n  with his fellows. If _cant_ is directly from Latin _cantare_, it will\n  correspond with Italian _cantare_ and French _chanter_, both used as\n  slang words for to speak (Francisque-Michel, \u2018Argot\u2019). A Keltic origin\n  is more probable, Gaelic and Irish _cainnt_, _caint_ == talk,\n  language, dialect (see Wedgwood \u2018Etymological Dictionary\u2019). The Gaelic\n  equivalents for pedlars\u2019 French or tramps\u2019 slang, are \u2018Laidionn nan\n  ceard,\u2019 \u2018_cainnt_ cheard,\u2019 i.e., tinkers\u2019 Latin or jargon, or exactly\n  \u2018cairds\u2019 _cant_.\u2019 A deeper connexion between _cainnt_ and _cantare_\n  does not affect this.\n\nFootnote 570:\n\n  See also Francisque-Michel, \u2018Argot,\u2019 s.v. \u2018maccabe, macchab\u00e9e\u2019==noy\u00e9.\n\nFootnote 571:\n\n  Musters, \u2018Patagonians,\u2019 pp. 69, 184.\n\nFootnote 572:\n\n  D\u00f6hne, \u2018Zulu Dic.\u2019 p. 417; Arbousset and Daumas, p. 269; Waitz, vol.\n  ii. pp. 349, 352.\n\nFootnote 573:\n\n  Shortland, \u2018Trads. of N. Z.\u2019 p. 224.\n\nFootnote 574:\n\n  On the adoption of imaginary ancestors as connected with the fiction\n  of a common descent, and the important political and religious effects\n  of these proceedings, see especially Grote, \u2018History of Greece,\u2019 vol.\n  i.; McLennan, \u2018Primitive Marriage;\u2019 Maine, \u2018Ancient Law.\u2019 Interesting\n  details on eponymic ancestors in Pott, \u2018Anti-Kaulen, oder Mythische\n  Vorstellungen vom Ursprnge der V\u00f6lker and Sprachen.\u2019\n\nFootnote 575:\n\n  Martius, \u2018Ethnog. Amer.\u2019 vol. i. p. 54; see p. 283.\n\nFootnote 576:\n\n  Macpherson, \u2018India,\u2019 p. 78.\n\nFootnote 577:\n\n  Vamb\u00e9ry, \u2018Central Asia,\u2019 p. 325; see also Latham, \u2018Descr. Eth.\u2019 vol.\n  i. p. 456 (Ostyaks); Georgi, \u2018Reise im Russ. Reich,\u2019 vol. i. 242\n  (Tunguz).\n\nFootnote 578:\n\n  Barth, \u2018N. & Centr. Afr.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 71.\n\nFootnote 579:\n\n  J. G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 p. 574.\n\nFootnote 580:\n\n  Martius, vol. i. pp. 180-4; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 416.\n\nFootnote 581:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part i. p. 319, part iii. p. 268, see\n  part ii. p. 49; Catlin, vol. ii. p. 128; J. G. M\u00fcller, pp. 134, 327.\n\nFootnote 582:\n\n  Grote, \u2018Hist. of Greece;\u2019 Pausan. iii. 20; Diod. Sic. v.; Apollodor.\n  Bibl. i. 7, 3, vi. 1, 4; Herodot. i. 171.\n\nFootnote 583:\n\n  Max M\u00fcller in Bunsen, vol. i. p. 338; Tabari, part i. ch. xlv., lxix.\n\nFootnote 584:\n\n  Sir W. Jones in \u2018As. Res.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 24; Vansittart, ibid. p. 67;\n  see Campbell, in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1866, part ii. p. 7.\n\nFootnote 585:\n\n  Will, de Rubruquis in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 23; Gabelentz in\n  \u2018Zeitschr. f\u00fcr die Kunde des Morgenlandes,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 73; Schmidt,\n  \u2018V\u00f6lker Mittel-Asien,\u2019 p. 6.\n\nFootnote 586:\n\n  See also Pott, \u2018Anti-Kaulen,\u2019 pp. 19, 23; \u2018Rassen,\u2019 pp. 70, 153; and\n  remarks on colonization-myths in Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Chips,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 68.\n\nFootnote 587:\n\n   Seemann, \u2018Viti,\u2019 p. 311; Turner, \u2018Polynesia,\u2019 p. 252.\n\nFootnote 588:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 69.\n\nFootnote 589:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 122; \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part i. p.\n  320, part ii. p. 230.\n\nFootnote 590:\n\n  J. R. Wise, \u2018The New Forest,\u2019 p. 160; Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 268;\n  Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Chips,\u2019 vol. i. p. 249; M. A. Walker, \u2018Macedonia,\u2019 p.\n  192; Movers, \u2018Ph\u00f6nizier,\u2019 vol. i. p. 665; Lucian. de De\u00e2 Syri\u00e2, 8;\n  Hunt, \u2018Pop. Rom.\u2019 2nd Series, p. 15; Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 pp.\n  16, 94; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 59, vol. iii. p. 185; Buchanan,\n  \u2018Mysore, &c.\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 714.\n\nFootnote 591:\n\n  Sprenger, \u2018Leben des Mohammad,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 78, 119, 162, 310.\n\nFootnote 592:\n\n  Marco Polo, book i. ch. viii.\n\nFootnote 593:\n\n  Grote, vol. i. p. 347.\n\nFootnote 594:\n\n  Welcker, vol. i. p. 756.\n\nFootnote 595:\n\n  Xenoph. Memorabilia, ii. 1.\n\nFootnote 596:\n\n  Oldfield in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 259.\n\nFootnote 597:\n\n  Steller, \u2018Kamtschatka,\u2019 p. 255.\n\nFootnote 598:\n\n  Wilson in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 306.\n\nFootnote 599:\n\n  J. L. Wilson, \u2018W. Afr.\u2019 p. 382.\n\nFootnote 600:\n\n  Bleek, \u2018Reynard in S. Afr.\u2019 pp. 5, 47, 67 (these are not among the\n  stories which seem recently borrowed from Europeans). See \u2018Early\n  History of Mankind,\u2019 p. 10.\n\nFootnote 601:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. p. 355.\n\nFootnote 602:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Algic Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 160; see pp. 43, 51.\n\nFootnote 603:\n\n  Jakob Grimm, \u2018Reinhart Fuchs,\u2019 Introd.\n\nFootnote 604:\n\n  Account of Laura Bridgman, p. 120.\n\nFootnote 605:\n\n  Bowring, \u2018Siam,\u2019 vol. i. p. 313; Hardy, \u2018Manual of Budhism,\u2019 p. 98.\n  See the fable of the \u2018Crow and Pitcher,\u2019 in Plin. x. 60, and Bastian,\n  \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. i. p. 76.\n\nFootnote 606:\n\n  Jameson, \u2018History of Our Lord in Art,\u2019 vol. i. p. 375.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XI.\n                                ANIMISM.\n\n    Religious ideas generally appear among low races of Mankind\u2014Negative\n    statements on this subject frequently misleading and mistaken: many\n    cases uncertain\u2014Minimum definition of Religion\u2014Doctrine of Spiritual\n    Beings, here termed Animism\u2014Animism treated as belonging to Natural\n    Religion\u2014Animism divided into two sections, the philosophy of Souls,\n    and of other Spirits\u2014Doctrine of Souls, its prevalence and\n    definition among the lower races\u2014Definition of Apparitional Soul or\n    Ghost-Soul\u2014It is a theoretical conception of primitive Philosophy,\n    designed to account for phenomena now classed under Biology,\n    especially Life and Death, Health and Disease, Sleep and Dreams,\n    Trance and Visions\u2014Relation of Soul in name and nature to Shadow,\n    Blood, Breath\u2014Division of Plurality of Souls\u2014Soul cause of Life; its\n    restoration to body when supposed absent\u2014Exit of Soul in\n    Trances\u2014Dreams and Visions: theory of exit of dreamer\u2019s or seer\u2019s\n    own soul; theory of visits received by them from other\n    souls\u2014Ghost-Soul seen in Apparitions\u2014Wraiths and Doubles\u2014Soul has\n    form of body; suffers mutilation with it\u2014Voice of Ghost\u2014Soul treated\n    and defined as of Material Substance; this appears to be the\n    original doctrine\u2014Transmission of Souls to service in future life by\n    Funeral Sacrifice of wives, attendants, &c.\u2014Souls of Animals\u2014Their\n    transmission by Funeral Sacrifice\u2014Souls of Plants\u2014Souls of\n    Objects\u2014Their transmission by Funeral Sacrifice\u2014Relation of doctrine\n    of Object-Souls to Epicurean theory of Ideas\u2014Historical development\n    of Doctrine of Souls, from the Ethereal Soul of primitive Biology to\n    the Immaterial Soul of modern Theology.\n\n\nAre there, or have there been, tribes of men so low in culture as to\nhave no religious conceptions whatever? This is practically the question\nof the universality of religion, which for so many centuries has been\naffirmed and denied, with a confidence in striking contrast to the\nimperfect evidence on which both affirmation and denial have been based.\nEthnographers, if looking to a theory of development to explain\ncivilization, and regarding its successive stages as arising one from\nanother, would receive with peculiar interest accounts of tribes devoid\nof all religion. Here, they would naturally say, are men who have no\nreligion because their forefathers had none, men who represent a\npr\u00e6-religious condition of the human race, out of which in the course of\ntime religious conditions have arisen. It does not, however, seem\nadvisable to start from this ground in an investigation of religious\ndevelopment. Though the theoretical niche is ready and convenient, the\nactual statue to fill it is not forthcoming. The case is in some degree\nsimilar to that of the tribes asserted to exist without language or\nwithout the use of fire; nothing in the nature of things seems to forbid\nthe possibility of such existence, but as a matter of fact the tribes\nare not found. Thus the assertion that rude non-religious tribes have\nbeen known in actual existence, though in theory possible, and perhaps\nin fact true, does not at present rest on that sufficient proof which,\nfor an exceptional state of things, we are entitled to demand.\n\nIt is not unusual for the very writer who declares in general terms the\nabsence of religious phenomena among some savage people, himself to give\nevidence that shows his expressions to be misleading. Thus Dr. Lang not\nonly declares that the aborigines of Australia have no idea of a supreme\ndivinity, creator, and judge, no object of worship, no idol, temple, or\nsacrifice, but that \u2018in short, they have nothing whatever of the\ncharacter of religion, or of religious observance, to distinguish them\nfrom the beasts that perish.\u2019 More than one writer has since made use of\nthis telling statement, but without referring to certain details which\noccur in the very same book. From these it appears that a disease like\nsmall-pox, which sometimes attacks the natives, is ascribed by them \u2018to\nthe influence of Budyah, an evil spirit who delights in mischief;\u2019 that\nwhen the natives rob a wild bees\u2019 hive, they generally leave a little of\nthe honey for Buddai; that at certain biennial gatherings of the\nQueensland tribes, young girls are slain in sacrifice to propitiate some\nevil divinity; and that, lastly, according to the evidence of the Rev.\nW. Ridley, \u2018whenever he has conversed with the aborigines, he found them\nto have definite traditions concerning supernatural beings\u2014Baiame, whose\nvoice they hear in thunder, and who made all things, Turramullum the\nchief of demons, who is the author of disease, mischief, and wisdom, and\nappears in the form of a serpent at their great assemblies, &c.\u2019[607] By\nthe concurring testimony of a crowd of observers, it is known that the\nnatives of Australia were at their discovery, and have since remained, a\nrace with minds saturated with the most vivid belief in souls, demons,\nand deities. In Africa, Mr. Moffat\u2019s declaration as to the Bechuanas is\nscarcely less surprising\u2014that \u2018man\u2019s immortality was never heard of\namong that people,\u2019 he having remarked in the sentence next before, that\nthe word for the shades or manes of the dead is \u2018liriti.\u2019[608] In South\nAmerica, again, Don Felix de Azara comments on the positive falsity of\nthe ecclesiastics\u2019 assertion that the native tribes have a religion. He\nsimply declares that they have none; nevertheless in the course of his\nwork he mentions such facts as that the Payaguas bury arms and clothing\nwith their dead and have some notions of a future life, and that the\nGuanas believe in a Being who rewards good and punishes evil. In fact,\nthis author\u2019s reckless denial of religion and law to the lower races of\nthis region justifies D\u2019Orbigny\u2019s sharp criticism, that, \u2018this is indeed\nwhat he says of all the nations he describes, while actually proving the\ncontrary of his thesis by the very facts he alleges in its\nsupport.\u2019[609]\n\nSuch cases show how deceptive are judgments to which breadth and\ngenerality are given by the use of wide words in narrow senses. Lang,\nMoffat, and Azara are authors to whom ethnography owes much valuable\nknowledge of the tribes they visited, but they seem hardly to have\nrecognized anything short of the organized and established theology of\nthe higher races as being religion at all. They attribute irreligion to\ntribes whose doctrines are unlike theirs, in much the same manner as\ntheologians have so often attributed atheism to those whose deities\ndiffered from their own, from the time when the ancient invading Aryans\ndescribed the aboriginal tribes of India as _adeva_, i.e. \u2018godless,\u2019 and\nthe Greeks fixed the corresponding term \u1f04\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03b9 on the early Christians as\nunbelievers in the classic gods, to the comparatively modern ages when\ndisbelievers in witchcraft and apostolical succession were denounced as\natheists; and down to our own day, when controversialists are apt to\ninfer, as in past centuries, that naturalists who support a theory of\ndevelopment of species therefore necessarily hold atheistic\nopinions.[610] These are in fact but examples of a general perversion of\njudgment in theological matters, among the results of which is a popular\nmisconception of the religions of the lower races, simply amazing to\nstudents who have reached a higher point of view. Some missionaries, no\ndoubt, thoroughly understand the minds of the savages they have to deal\nwith, and indeed it is from men like Cranz, Dobrizhoffer, Charlevoix,\nEllis, Hardy, Callaway, J. L. Wilson, T. Williams, that we have obtained\nour best knowledge of the lower phases of religious belief. But for the\nmost part the \u2018religious world\u2019 is so occupied in hating and despising\nthe beliefs of the heathen whose vast regions of the globe are painted\nblack on the missionary maps, that they have little time or capacity\nleft to understand them. It cannot be so with those who fairly seek to\ncomprehend the nature and meaning of the lower phases of religion.\nThese, while fully alive to the absurdities believed and the horrors\nperpetrated in its name, will yet regard with kindly interest all record\nof men\u2019s earnest seeking after truth with such light as they could find.\nSuch students will look for meaning, however crude and childish, at the\nroot of doctrines often most dark to the believers who accept them most\nzealously; they will search for the reasonable thought which once gave\nlife to observances now become in seeming or reality the most abject and\nsuperstitious folly. The reward of these enquirers will be a more\nrational comprehension of the faiths in whose midst they dwell, for no\nmore can he who understands but one religion understand even that\nreligion, than the man who knows but one language can understand that\nlanguage. No religion of mankind lies in utter isolation from the rest,\nand the thoughts and principles of modern Christianity are attached to\nintellectual clues which run back through far pr\u00e6-Christian ages to the\nvery origin of human civilization, perhaps even of human existence.\n\nWhile observers who have had fair opportunities of studying the religion\nof savages have thus sometimes done scant justice to the facts before\ntheir eyes, the hasty denials of others who have judged without even\nfacts can carry no great weight. A 16th-century traveller gave an\naccount of the natives of Florida which is typical of such: \u2018Touching\nthe religion of this people, which wee have found, for want of their\nlanguage wee could not understand neither by signs nor gesture that they\nhad any religion or lawe at all.... We suppose that they have no\nreligion at all, and that they live at their own libertie.\u2019[611] Better\nknowledge of these Floridans nevertheless showed that they had a\nreligion, and better knowledge has reversed many another hasty assertion\nto the same effect; as when writers used to declare that the natives of\nMadagascar had no idea of a future state, and no word for soul or\nspirit;[612] or when Dampier enquired after the religion of the natives\nof Timor, and was told that they had none;[613] or when Sir Thomas Roe\nlanded in Saldanha Bay on his way to the court of the Great Mogul, and\nremarked of the Hottentots that \u2018they have left off their custom of\nstealing, but know no God or religion.\u2019[614] Among the numerous accounts\ncollected by Lord Avebury as evidence bearing on the absence or low\ndevelopment of religion among low races,[615] some may be selected as\nlying open to criticism from this point of view. Thus the statement that\nthe Samoan Islanders had no religion cannot stand, in face of the\nelaborate description by the Rev. G. Turner of the Samoan religion\nitself; and the assertion that the Tupinambas of Brazil had no religion\nis one not to be received on merely negative evidence, for the religious\ndoctrines and practices of the Tupi race have been recorded by Lery, De\nLaet, and other writers. Even with much time and care and knowledge of\nlanguage, it is not always easy to elicit from savages the details of\ntheir theology. They try to hide from the prying and contemptuous\nforeigner their worship of gods who seem to shrink, like their\nworshippers, before the white man and his mightier Deity. Mr. Sproat\u2019s\nexperience in Vancouver\u2019s Island is an apt example of this state of\nthings. He says: \u2018I was two years among the Ahts, with my mind\nconstantly directed towards the subject of their religious beliefs,\nbefore I could discover that they possessed any ideas as to an\noverruling power or a future state of existence. The traders on the\ncoast, and other persons well acquainted with the people, told me that\nthey had no such ideas, and this opinion was confirmed by conversation\nwith many of the less intelligent savages; but at last I succeeded in\ngetting a satisfactory clue.\u2019[616] It then appeared that the Ahts had\nall the time been hiding a whole characteristic system of religious\ndoctrines as to souls and their migrations, the spirits who do good and\nill to men, and the great gods above all. Thus, even where no positive\nproof of religious ideas among any particular tribe has reached us, we\nshould distrust its denial by observers whose acquaintance with the\ntribe in question has not been intimate as well as kindly. It is said of\nthe Andaman Islanders that they have not the rudest elements of a\nreligious faith; yet it appears that the natives did not even display to\nthe foreigners the rude music which they actually possessed, so that\nthey could scarcely have been expected to be communicative as to their\ntheology, if they had any.[617] In our time the most striking negation\nof the religion of savage tribes is that published by Sir Samuel Baker,\nin a paper read in 1866 before the Ethnological Society of London, as\nfollows: \u2018The most northern tribes of the White Nile are the Dinkas,\nShillooks, Nuehr, Kytch, Bohr, Aliab, and Shir. A general description\nwill suffice for the whole, excepting the Kytch. Without any exception,\nthey are without a belief in a Supreme Being, neither have they any form\nof worship or idolatry; nor is the darkness of their minds enlightened\nby even a ray of superstition.\u2019 Had this distinguished explorer spoken\nonly of the Latukas, or of other tribes hardly known to ethnographers\nexcept through his own intercourse with them, his denial of any\nreligious consciousness to them would have been at least entitled to\nstand as the best procurable account, until more intimate communication\nshould prove or disprove it. But in speaking thus of comparatively well\nknown tribes such as the Dinkas, Shilluks and Nuehr, Sir S. Baker\nignores the existence of published evidence, such as describes the\nsacrifices of the Dinkas, their belief in good and evil spirits (adjok\nand djyok), their good deity and heaven-dwelling creator, Dendid, as\nlikewise N\u00e9ar the Deity of the Nuehr, and the Shilluk\u2019s creator, who is\ndescribed as visiting, like other spirits, a sacred wood or tree.\nKaufmann, Brun-Rollet, Lejean, and other observers, had thus placed on\nrecord details of the religion of these White Nile tribes, years before\nSir S. Baker\u2019s rash denial that they had any religion at all.[618]\n\nThe first requisite in a systematic study of the religions of the lower\nraces, is to lay down a rudimentary definition of religion. By requiring\nin this definition the belief in a supreme deity or of judgment after\ndeath, the adoration of idols or the practice of sacrifice, or other\npartially-diffused doctrines or rites, no doubt many tribes may be\nexcluded from the category of religious. But such narrow definition has\nthe fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments\nthan with the deeper motive which underlies them. It seems best to fall\nback at once on this essential source, and simply to claim, as a minimum\ndefinition of Religion, the belief in Spiritual Beings. If this standard\nbe applied to the descriptions of low races as to religion, the\nfollowing results will appear. It cannot be positively asserted that\nevery existing tribe recognizes the belief in spiritual beings, for the\nnative condition of a considerable number is obscure in this respect,\nand from the rapid change or extinction they are undergoing, may ever\nremain so. It would be yet more unwarranted to set down every tribe\nmentioned in history, or known to us by the discovery of antiquarian\nrelics, as necessarily having passed the defined minimum of religion.\nGreater still would be the unwisdom of declaring such a rudimentary\nbelief natural or instinctive in all human tribes of all times; for no\nevidence justifies the opinion that man, known to be capable of so vast\nan intellectual development, cannot have emerged from a non-religious\ncondition, previous to that religious condition in which he happens at\npresent to come with sufficient clearness within our range of knowledge.\nIt is desirable, however, to take our basis of enquiry in observation\nrather than from speculation. Here, so far as I can judge from the\nimmense mass of accessible evidence, we have to admit that the belief in\nspiritual beings appears among all low races with whom we have attained\nto thoroughly intimate acquaintance; whereas the assertion of absence of\nsuch belief must apply either to ancient tribes, or to more or less\nimperfectly described modern ones. The exact bearing of this state of\nthings on the problem of the origin of religion may be thus briefly\nstated. Were it distinctly proved that non-religious savages exist or\nhave existed, these might be at least plausibly claimed as\nrepresentatives of the condition of Man before he arrived at the\nreligious state of culture. It is not desirable, however, that this\nargument should be put forward, for the asserted existence of the\nnon-religious tribes in question rests, as we have seen, on evidence\noften mistaken and never conclusive. The argument for the natural\nevolution of religious ideas among mankind is not invalidated by the\nrejection of an ally too weak at present to give effectual help.\nNon-religious tribes may not exist in our day, but the fact bears no\nmore decisively on the development of religion, than the impossibility\nof finding a modern English village without scissors or books or\nlucifer-matches bears on the fact that there was a time when no such\nthings existed in the land.\n\nI propose here, under the name of Animism, to investigate the deep-lying\ndoctrine of Spiritual Beings, which embodies the very essence of\nSpiritualistic as opposed to Materialistic philosophy. Animism is not a\nnew technical term, though now seldom used.[619] From its special\nrelation to the doctrine of the soul, it will be seen to have a peculiar\nappropriateness to the view here taken of the mode in which theological\nideas have been developed among mankind. The word Spiritualism, though\nit may be, and sometimes is, used in a general sense, has this obvious\ndefect to us, that it has become the designation of a particular modern\nsect, who indeed hold extreme spiritualistic views, but cannot be taken\nas typical representatives of these views in the world at large. The\nsense of Spiritualism in its wider acceptation, the general belief in\nspiritual beings, is here given to Animism.\n\nAnimism characterizes tribes very low in the scale of humanity, and\nthence ascends, deeply modified in its transmission, but from first to\nlast preserving an unbroken continuity, into the midst of high modern\nculture. Doctrines adverse to it, so largely held by individuals or\nschools, are usually due not to early lowness of civilization, but to\nlater changes in the intellectual course, to divergence from, or\nrejection of, ancestral faiths; and such newer developments do not\naffect the present enquiry as to the fundamental religious condition of\nmankind. Animism is, in fact, the groundwork of the Philosophy of\nReligion, from that of savages up to that of civilized men. And although\nit may at first sight seem to afford but a bare and meagre definition of\na minimum of religion, it will be found practically sufficient; for\nwhere the root is, the branches will generally be produced. It is\nhabitually found that the theory of Animism divides into two great\ndogmas, forming parts of one consistent doctrine; first, concerning\nsouls of individual creatures, capable of continued existence after the\ndeath or destruction of the body; second, concerning other spirits,\nupward to the rank of powerful deities. Spiritual beings are held to\naffect or control the events of the material world, and man\u2019s life here\nand hereafter; and it being considered that they hold intercourse with\nmen, and receive pleasure or displeasure from human actions, the belief\nin their existence leads naturally, and it might almost be said\ninevitably, sooner or later to active reverence and propitiation. Thus\nAnimism in its full development, includes the belief in souls and in a\nfuture state, in controlling deities and subordinate spirits, these\ndoctrines practically resulting in some kind of active worship. One\ngreat element of religion, that moral element which among the higher\nnations forms its most vital part, is indeed little represented in the\nreligion of the lower races. It is not that these races have no moral\nsense or no moral standard, for both are strongly marked among them, if\nnot in formal precept, at least in that traditional consensus of society\nwhich we call public opinion, according to which certain actions are\nheld to be good or bad, right or wrong. It is that the conjunction of\nethics and Animistic philosophy, so intimate and powerful in the higher\nculture, seems scarcely yet to have begun in the lower. I propose here\nhardly to touch upon the purely moral aspects of religion, but rather to\nstudy the animism of the world so far as it constitutes, as\nunquestionably it does constitute, an ancient and world-wide philosophy,\nof which belief is the theory and worship is the practice. Endeavouring\nto shape the materials for an enquiry hitherto strangely undervalued and\nneglected, it will now be my task to bring as clearly as may be into\nview the fundamental animism of the lower races, and in some slight and\nbroken outline to trace its course into higher regions of civilization.\nHere let me state once for all two principal conditions under which the\npresent research is carried on. First, as to the religious doctrines and\npractices examined, these are treated as belonging to theological\nsystems devised by human reason, without supernatural aid or revelation;\nin other words, as being developments of Natural Religion. Second, as to\nthe connexion between similar ideas and rites in the religions of the\nsavage and the civilized world. While dwelling at some length on\ndoctrines and ceremonies of the lower races, and sometimes\nparticularizing for special reasons the related doctrines and ceremonies\nof the higher nations, it has not seemed my proper task to work out in\ndetail the problems thus suggested among the philosophies and creeds of\nChristendom. Such applications, extending farthest from the direct scope\nof a work on primitive culture, are briefly stated in general terms, or\ntouched in slight allusion, or taken for granted without remark.\nEducated readers possess the information required to work out their\ngeneral bearing on theology, while more technical discussion is left to\nphilosophers and theologians specially occupied with such arguments.\n\nThe first branch of the subject to be considered is the doctrine of\nhuman and other Souls, an examination of which will occupy the rest of\nthe present chapter. What the doctrine of the soul is among the lower\nraces, may be explained in stating the animistic theory of its\ndevelopment. It seems as though thinking men, as yet at a low level of\nculture, were deeply impressed by two groups of biological problems. In\nthe first place, what is it that makes the difference between a living\nbody and a dead one; what causes waking, sleep, trance, disease, death?\nIn the second place, what are those human shapes which appear in dreams\nand visions? Looking at these two groups of phenomena, the ancient\nsavage philosophers probably made their first step by the obvious\ninference that every man has two things belonging to him, namely, a life\nand a phantom. These two are evidently in close connexion with the body,\nthe life as enabling it to feel and think and act, the phantom as being\nits image or second self; both, also, are perceived to be things\nseparable from the body, the life as able to go away and leave it\ninsensible or dead, the phantom as appearing to people at a distance\nfrom it. The second step would seem also easy for savages to make,\nseeing how extremely difficult civilized men have found it to unmake. It\nis merely to combine the life and the phantom. As both belong to the\nbody, why should they not also belong to one another, and be\nmanifestations of one and the same soul? Let them then be considered as\nunited, and the result is that well-known conception which may be\ndescribed as an apparitional-soul, a ghost-soul. This, at any rate,\ncorresponds with the actual conception of the personal soul or spirit\namong the lower races, which may be defined as follows: It is a thin\nunsubstantial human image, in its nature a sort of vapour, film, or\nshadow; the cause of life and thought in the individual it animates;\nindependently possessing the personal consciousness and volition of its\ncorporeal owner, past or present; capable of leaving the body far\nbehind, to flash swiftly from place to place; mostly impalpable and\ninvisible, yet also manifesting physical power, and especially appearing\nto men waking or asleep as a phantasm separate from the body of which it\nbears the likeness; continuing to exist and appear to men after the\ndeath of that body; able to enter into, possess, and act in the bodies\nof other men, of animals, and even of things. Though this definition is\nby no means of universal application, it has sufficient generality to be\ntaken as a standard, modified by more or less divergence among any\nparticular people. Far from these world-wide opinions being arbitrary or\nconventional products, it is seldom even justifiable to consider their\nuniformity among distant races as proving communication of any sort.\nThey are doctrines answering in the most forcible way to the plain\nevidence of men\u2019s senses, as interpreted by a fairly consistent and\nrational primitive philosophy. So well, indeed, does primitive animism\naccount for the facts of nature, that it has held its place into the\nhigher levels of education. Though classic and medi\u00e6val philosophy\nmodified it much, and modern philosophy has handled it yet more\nunsparingly, it has so far retained the traces of its original\ncharacter, that heirlooms of primitive ages may be claimed in the\nexisting psychology of the civilized world. Out of the vast mass of\nevidence, collected among the most various and distant races of mankind,\ntypical details may now be selected to display the earlier theory of the\nsoul, the relation of the parts of this theory, and the manner in which\nthese parts have been abandoned, modified, or kept up, along the course\nof culture.\n\nTo understand the popular conceptions of the human soul or spirit, it is\ninstructive to notice the words which have been found suitable to\nexpress it. The ghost or phantasm seen by the dreamer or the visionary\nis an unsubstantial form, like a shadow or reflexion, and thus the\nfamiliar term of the _shade_ comes in to express the soul. Thus the\nTasmanian word for the shadow is also that for the spirit;[620] the\nAlgonquins describe a man\u2019s soul as _otahchuk_, \u2018his shadow;\u2019[621] the\nQuich\u00e9 language uses _natub_ for \u2018shadow, soul;\u2019[622] the Arawak _ueja_\nmeans \u2018shadow, soul, image;\u2019[623] the Abipones made the one word\n_lo\u00e1kal_ serve for \u2018shadow, soul, echo, image.\u2019[624] The Zulus not only\nuse the word _tunzi_ for \u2018shadow, spirit, ghost,\u2019 but they consider that\nat death the shadow of a man will in some way depart from the corpse, to\nbecome an ancestral spirit.[625] The Basutos not only call the spirit\nremaining after death the _seriti_ or \u2018shadow,\u2019 but they think that if a\nman walks on the river bank, a crocodile may seize his shadow in the\nwater and draw him in;[626] while in Old Calabar there is found the same\nidentification of the spirit with the _ukpon_ or \u2018shadow,\u2019 for a man to\nlose which is fatal.[627] There are thus found among the lower races not\nonly the types of those familiar classic terms, the _skia_ and _umbra_,\nbut also what seems the fundamental thought of the stories of shadowless\nmen still current in the folklore of Europe, and familiar to modern\nreaders in Chamisso\u2019s tale of Peter Schlemihl. Thus the dead in\nPurgatory knew that Dante was alive when they saw that, unlike theirs,\nhis figure cast a shadow on the ground.[628] Other attributes are taken\ninto the notion of soul or spirit, with especial regard to its being the\ncause of life. Thus the Caribs, connecting the pulses with spiritual\nbeings, and especially considering that in the heart dwells man\u2019s chief\nsoul, destined to a future heavenly life, could reasonably use the one\nword _iouanni_ for \u2018soul, life, heart.\u2019[629] The Tongans supposed the\nsoul to exist throughout the whole extension of the body, but\nparticularly in the heart. On one occasion, the natives were declaring\nto a European that a man buried months ago was nevertheless still alive.\n\u2018And one, endeavouring to make me understand what he meant, took hold of\nmy hand, and squeezing it, said, \u201cThis will die, but the life that is\nwithin you will never die;\u201d with his other hand pointing to my\nheart.\u2019[630] So the Basutos say of a dead man that his heart is gone\nout, and of one recovering from sickness that his heart is coming\nback.[631] This corresponds to the familiar Old World view of the heart\nas the prime mover in life, thought, and passion. The connexion of soul\nand blood, familiar to the Karens and Papuas, appears prominently in\nJewish and Arabic philosophy.[632] To educated moderns the idea of the\nMacusi Indians of Guiana may seem quaint, that although the body will\ndecay, \u2018the man in our eyes\u2019 will not die, but wander about.[633] Yet\nthe association of personal animation with the pupil of the eye is\nfamiliar to European folklore, which not unreasonably discerned a sign\nof bewitchment or approaching death in the disappearance of the image,\npupil, or baby, from the dim eyeballs of the sick man.[634]\n\nThe act of breathing, so characteristic of the higher animals during\nlife, and coinciding so closely with life in its departure, has been\nrepeatedly and naturally identified with the life or soul itself. Laura\nBridgman showed in her instructive way the analogy between the effects\nof restricted sense and restricted civilization, when one day she made\nthe gesture of taking something away from her mouth: \u2018I dreamed,\u2019 she\nexplained in words, \u2018that God took away my breath to heaven.\u2019[635] It is\nthus that West Australians used one word _waug_ for \u2018breath, spirit,\nsoul;[636] that in the Netela language of California, _piuts_ means\n\u2018life, breath, soul;[637] that certain Greenlanders reckoned two souls\nto man, namely his shadow and his breath;[638] that the Malays say the\nsoul of the dying man escapes through his nostrils, and in Java use the\nsame word _\u00f1awa_ for \u2018breath, life, soul.\u2019[639] How the notions of life,\nheart, breath, and phantom unite in the one conception of a soul or\nspirit, and at the same time how loose and vague such ideas are among\nbarbaric races, is well brought into view in the answers to a religious\ninquest held in 1528 among the natives of Nicaragua. \u2018When they die,\nthere comes out of their mouth something that resembles a person, and is\ncalled _julio_ [Aztec _yuli_==to live]. This being goes to the place\nwhere the man and woman are. It is like a person, but does not die, and\nthe body remains here.\u2019 _Question._ \u2018Do those who go up on high keep the\nsame body, the same face, and the same limbs, as here below?\u2019 _Answer._\n\u2018No; there is only the heart.\u2019 _Question._ \u2018But since they tear out\ntheir hearts [i.e. when a captive was sacrificed], what happens then?\u2019\n_Answer._ \u2018It is not precisely the heart, but that in them which makes\nthem live, and that quits the body when they die.\u2019 Or, as stated in\nanother interrogatory, \u2018It is not their heart that goes up above, but\nwhat makes them live, that is to say, the breath that issues from their\nmouth and is called _julio_.\u2019[640] The conception of the soul as breath\nmay be followed up through Semitic and Aryan etymology, and thus into\nthe main streams of the philosophy of the world. Hebrew shows _nephesh_,\n\u2018breath,\u2019 passing into all the meanings of \u2018life, soul, mind, animal,\u2019\nwhile _ruach_ and _neshamah_ make the like transition from \u2018breath\u2019 to\n\u2018spirit\u2019; and to these the Arabic _nefs_ and _ruh_ correspond. The same\nis the history of Sanskrit _\u00e2tman_ and _pr\u00e2na_, of Greek _psych\u0113_ and\n_pneuma_, of Latin _animus_, _anima_, _spiritus_. So Slavonic _duch_ has\ndeveloped the meaning of \u2018breath\u2019 into that of soul or spirit; and the\ndialects of the Gypsies have this word _d\u016bk_ with the meanings of\n\u2018breath, spirit, ghost,\u2019 whether these pariahs brought the word from\nIndia as part of their inheritance of Aryan speech, or whether they\nadopted it in their migration across Slavonic lands.[641] German _geist_\nand English _ghost_, too, may possibly have the same original sense of\nbreath. And if any should think such expressions due to mere metaphor,\nthey may judge the strength of the implied connexion between breath and\nspirit by cases of most unequivocal significance. Among the Seminoles of\nFlorida, when a woman died in childbirth, the infant was held over her\nface to receive her parting spirit, and thus acquire strength and\nknowledge for its future use. These Indians could have well understood\nwhy at the death-bed of an ancient Roman, the nearest kinsman leant over\nto inhale the last breath of the departing (et excipies hanc animam ore\npio). Their state of mind is kept up to this day among Tyrolese\npeasants, who can still fancy a good man\u2019s soul to issue from his mouth\nat death like a little white cloud.[642]\n\nIt will be shown that men, in their composite and confused notions of\nthe soul, have brought into connexion a list of manifestations of life\nand thought even more multifarious than this. But also, seeking to avoid\nsuch perplexity of combination, they have sometimes endeavoured to\ndefine and classify more closely, especially by the theory that man has\na combination of several kinds of spirit, soul, or image, to which\ndifferent functions belong. Already in the barbaric world such\nclassification has been invented or adopted. Thus the Fijians\ndistinguished between a man\u2019s \u2018dark spirit\u2019 or shadow, which goes to\nHades, and his \u2018light spirit\u2019 or reflexion in water or a mirror, which\nstays near where he dies.[643] The Malagasy say that the _saina_ or mind\nvanishes at death, the _aina_ or life becomes mere air, but the\n_matoatoa_ or ghost hovers round the tomb.[644] In North America, the\nduality of the soul is a strongly marked Algonquin belief; one soul goes\nout and sees dreams while the other remains behind; at death one of the\ntwo abides with the body, and for this the survivors leave offerings of\nfood, while the other departs to the land of the dead. A division into\nthree souls is also known, and the Dakotas say that man has four souls,\none remaining with the corpse, one staying in the village, one going in\nthe air, and one to the land of spirits.[645] The Karens distinguish\nbetween the \u2018l\u00e0\u2019 or \u2018kelah,\u2019 the personal life-phantom, and the \u2018thah,\u2019\nthe responsible moral soul.[646] More or less under Hindu influence, the\nKhonds have a fourfold division, as follows: the first soul is that\ncapable of beatification or restoration to Boora the Good Deity; the\nsecond is attached to a Khond tribe on earth and is re-born generation\nafter generation, so that at the birth of each child the priest asks who\nhas returned; the third goes out to hold spiritual intercourse, leaving\nthe body in a languid state, and it is this soul which can pass for a\ntime into a tiger, and transmigrates for punishment after death; the\nfourth dies on the dissolution of the body.[647] Such classifications\nresemble those of higher nations, as for instance the three-fold\ndivision of shade, manes, and spirit:\n\n            \u2018Bis duo sunt homini, manes, caro, spiritus, umbra:\n              Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt.\n            Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,\n              Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.\u2019\n\nNot attempting to follow up the details of such psychical division into\nthe elaborate systems of literary nations, I shall not discuss the\ndistinction which the ancient Egyptians seem to have made in the Ritual\nof the Dead between the man\u2019s _ba_, _akh_, _ka_, _khaba_, translated by\nDr. Birch as his \u2018soul,\u2019 \u2018mind,\u2019 \u2018image,\u2019 \u2018shade,\u2019 or the Rabbinical\ndivision into what may be roughly described as the bodily, spiritual,\nand celestial souls, or the distinction between the emanative and\ngenetic souls in Hindu philosophy, or the distribution of life,\napparition, ancestral spirit, among the three souls of the Chinese, or\nthe demarcations of the _nous_, _psych\u0113_, and _pneuma_, or of the\n_anima_ and _animus_, or the famous classic and medi\u00e6val theories of the\nvegetal, sensitive, and rational souls. Suffice it to point out here\nthat such speculation dates back to the barbaric condition of our race,\nin a state fairly comparing as to scientific value with much that has\ngained esteem within the precincts of higher culture. It would be a\ndifficult task to treat such classification on a consistent logical\nbasis. Terms corresponding with those of life, mind, soul, spirit,\nghost, and so forth, are not thought of as describing really separate\nentities, so much as the several forms and functions of one individual\nbeing. Thus the confusion which here prevails in our own thought and\nlanguage, in a manner typical of the thought and language of mankind in\ngeneral, is in fact due not merely to vagueness of terms, but to an\nancient theory of substantial unity which underlies them. Such ambiguity\nof language, however, will be found to interfere little with the present\nenquiry, for the details given of the nature and action of spirits,\nsouls, phantoms, will themselves define the exact sense such words are\nto be taken in.\n\nThe early animistic theory of vitality, regarding the functions of life\nas caused by the soul, offers to the savage mind an explanation of\nseveral bodily and mental conditions, as being effects of a departure of\nthe soul or some of its constituent spirits. This theory holds a wide\nand strong position in savage biology. The South Australians express it\nwhen they say of one insensible or unconscious, that he is\n\u2018wilyamarraba,\u2019 i.e., \u2018without soul.\u2019[648] Among the Algonquin Indians\nof North America, we hear of sickness being accounted for by the\npatient\u2019s \u2018shadow\u2019 being unsettled or detached from his body, and of the\nconvalescent being reproached for exposing himself before his shadow was\nsafely settled down in him; where we should say that a man was ill and\nrecovered, they would consider that he died, but came again. Another\naccount from among the same race explains the condition of men lying in\nlethargy or trance; their souls have travelled to the banks of the River\nof Death, but have been driven back and return to reanimate their\nbodies.[649] Among the Fijians, \u2018when any one faints or dies, their\nspirit, it is said, may sometimes be brought back by calling after it;\nand occasionally the ludicrous scene is witnessed of a stout man lying\nat full length, and bawling out lustily for the return of his own\nsoul.\u2019[650] To the negroes of North Guinea, derangement or dotage is\ncaused by the patient being prematurely deserted by his soul, sleep\nbeing a more temporary withdrawal.[651] Thus, in various countries, the\nbringing back of lost souls becomes a regular part of the sorcerer\u2019s or\npriest\u2019s profession. The Salish Indians of Oregon regard the spirit as\ndistinct from the vital principle, and capable of quitting the body for\na short time without the patient being conscious of its absence; but to\navoid fatal consequences it must be restored as soon as possible, and\naccordingly the medicine-man in solemn form replaces it down through the\npatient\u2019s head.[652] The Turanian or Tatar races of Northern Asia\nstrongly hold the theory of the soul\u2019s departure in disease, and among\nthe Buddhist tribes the Lamas carry out the ceremony of soul-restoration\nin most elaborate form. When a man has been robbed by a demon of his\nrational soul, and has only his animal soul left, his senses and memory\ngrow weak and he falls into a dismal state. Then the Lama undertakes to\ncure him, and with quaint rites exorcises the evil demon. But if this\nfails, then it is the patient\u2019s soul itself that cannot or will not find\nits way back. So the sick man is laid out in his best attire and\nsurrounded with his most attractive possessions, the friends and\nrelatives go thrice round the dwelling, affectionately calling back the\nsoul by name, while as a further inducement the Lama reads from his book\ndescriptions of the pains of hell, and the dangers incurred by a soul\nwhich wilfully abandons its body, and then at last the whole assembly\ndeclare with one voice that the wandering spirit has returned and the\npatient will recover.[653] The Karens of Burma will run about pretending\nto catch a sick man\u2019s wandering soul, or as they say with the Greeks and\nSlavs, his \u2018butterfly\u2019 (leip-pya), and at last drop it down upon his\nhead. The Karen doctrine of the \u2018l\u00e0\u2019 is indeed a perfect and well-marked\nvitalistic system. This l\u00e0, soul, ghost, or genius, may be separated\nfrom the body it belongs to, and it is a matter of the deepest interest\nto the Karen to keep his l\u00e0 with him, by calling it, making offerings of\nfood to it, and so forth. It is especially when the body is asleep, that\nthe soul goes out and wanders; if it is detained beyond a certain time,\ndisease ensues, and if permanently, then its owner dies. When the \u2018wee\u2019\nor spirit-doctor is employed to call back the departed shade or life of\na Karen, if he cannot recover it from the region of the dead, he will\nsometimes take the shade of a living man and transfer it to the dead,\nwhile its proper owner, whose soul has ventured out in a dream, sickens\nand dies. Or when a Karen becomes sick, languid and pining from his l\u00e0\nhaving left him, his friends will perform a ceremony with a garment of\nthe invalid\u2019s and a fowl which is cooked and offered with rice, invoking\nthe spirit with formal prayers to come back to the patient.[654] This\nceremony is perhaps ethnologically connected, though it is not easy to\nsay by what manner of diffusion or when, with a rite still practised in\nChina. When a Chinese is at the point of death, and his soul is supposed\nto be already out of his body, a relative may be seen holding up the\npatient\u2019s coat on a long bamboo, to which a white cock is often\nfastened, while a Tauist priest by incantations brings the departed\nspirit into the coat, in order to put it back into the sick man. If the\nbamboo after a time turns round slowly in the holder\u2019s hands, this shows\nthat the spirit is inside the garment.[655]\n\nSuch temporary exit of the soul has a world-wide application to the\nproceedings of the sorcerer, priest, or seer himself. He professes to\nsend forth his spirit on distant journeys, and probably often believes\nhis soul released for a time from its bodily prison, as in the case of\nthat remarkable dreamer and visionary Jerome Cardan, who describes\nhimself as having the faculty of passing out of his senses as into\necstasy whenever he will, feeling when he goes into this state a sort of\nseparation near the heart as if his soul were departing, this state\nbeginning from his brain and passing down his spine, and he then feeling\nonly that he is out of himself.[656] Thus the Australian native doctor\nis alleged to obtain his initiation by visiting the world of spirits in\na trance of two or three days\u2019 duration;[657] the Khond priest\nauthenticates his claim to office by remaining from one to fourteen days\nin a languid and dreamy state, caused by one of his souls being away in\nthe divine presence;[658] the Greenland angekok\u2019s soul goes forth from\nhis body to fetch his familiar demon;[659] the Turanian shaman lies in\nlethargy while his soul departs to bring hidden wisdom from the land of\nspirits.[660] The literature of more progressive races supplies similar\naccounts. A characteristic story from old Scandinavia is that of the\nNorse chief Ingimund, who shut up three Finns in a hut for three nights,\nthat they might visit Iceland and inform him of the lie of the country\nwhere he was to settle; their bodies became rigid, they sent their souls\non the errand, and awakening after the three days they gave a\ndescription of the Vatnsd\u00e6l.[661] The typical classic case is the story\nof Hermotimos, whose prophetic soul went out from time to time to visit\ndistant regions, till at last his wife burnt the lifeless body on the\nfuneral pile, and when the poor soul came back, there was no longer a\ndwelling for it to animate.[662] A group of the legendary visits to the\nspirit-world; which will be described in the next chapter, belong to\nthis class. A typical spiritualistic instance may be quoted from\nJung-Stilling, who says that examples have come to his knowledge of sick\npersons who, longing to see absent friends, have fallen into a swoon\nduring which they have appeared to the distant objects of their\naffection.[663] As an illustration from our own folklore, the well-known\nsuperstition may serve, that fasting watchers on St. John\u2019s Eve may see\nthe apparitions of those doomed to die during the year come with the\nclergyman to the church door and knock; these apparitions are spirits\nwho come forth from their bodies, for the minister has been noticed to\nbe much troubled in his sleep while his phantom was thus engaged, and\nwhen one of a party of watchers fell into a sound sleep and could not be\nroused, the others saw his apparition knock at the church door.[664]\nModern Europe has indeed kept closely enough to the lines of early\nphilosophy, for such ideas to have little strangeness to our own time.\nLanguage preserves record of them in such expressions as \u2018out of\noneself,\u2019 \u2018beside oneself,\u2019 \u2018in an ecstasy,\u2019 and he who says that his\nspirit goes forth to meet a friend, can still realize in the phrase a\nmeaning deeper than metaphor.\n\nThis same doctrine forms one side of the theory of dreams prevalent\namong the lower races. Certain of the Greenlanders, Cranz remarks,\nconsider that the soul quits the body in the night and goes out hunting,\ndancing, and visiting; their dreams, which are frequent and lively,\nhaving brought them to this opinion.[665] Among the Indians of North\nAmerica, we hear of the dreamer\u2019s soul leaving his body and wandering in\nquest of things attractive to it. These things the waking man must\nendeavour to obtain, lest his soul be troubled, and quit the body\naltogether.[666] The New Zealanders considered the dreaming soul to\nleave the body and return, even travelling to the region of the dead to\nhold converse with its friends.[667] The Tagals of Luzon object to\nwaking a sleeper, on account of the absence of his soul.[668] The\nKarens, whose theory of the wandering soul has just been noticed,\nexplain dreams to be what this l\u00e0 sees and experiences in its journeys\nwhen it has left the body asleep. They even account with much acuteness\nfor the fact that we are apt to dream of people and places which we knew\nbefore; the leip-pya, they say, can only visit the regions where the\nbody it belongs to has been already.[669] Onward from the savage state,\nthe idea of the spirit\u2019s departure in sleep may be traced into the\nspeculative philosophy of higher nations, as in the Vedanta system, and\nthe Kabbala.[670] St. Augustine tells one of the double narratives which\nso well illustrate theories of this kind. The man who tells Augustine\nthe story relates that, at home one night before going to sleep, he saw\ncoming to him a certain philosopher, most well known to him, who then\nexpounded to him certain Platonic passages, which when asked previously\nhe had refused to explain. And when he (afterwards) enquired of this\nphilosopher why he did at his house what he had refused to do when asked\nat his own: \u2018I did not do it,\u2019 said the philosopher, \u2018but I dreamt I\ndid.\u2019 And thus, says Augustine, that was exhibited to one by phantastic\nimage while waking, which the other saw in a dream.[671] European\nfolklore, too, has preserved interesting details of this primitive\ndream-theory, such as the fear of turning a sleeper over lest the absent\nsoul should miss the way back. King Gunthram\u2019s legend is one of a group\ninteresting from the same point of view. The king lay in the wood asleep\nwith his head in his faithful henchman\u2019s lap; the servant saw as it were\na snake issue from his lord\u2019s mouth and run to the brook, but it could\nnot pass, so the servant laid his sword across the water, and the\ncreature ran along it and up into a mountain; after a while it came back\nand returned into the mouth of the sleeping king, who waking told him\nhow he had dreamt that he went over an iron bridge into a fountain full\nof gold.[672] This is one of those instructive legends which preserve\nfor us, as in a museum, relics of an early intellectual condition of our\nAryan race, in thoughts which to our modern minds have fallen to the\nlevel of quaint fancy, but which still remain sound and reasonable\nphilosophy to the savage. A Karen at this day would appreciate every\npoint of the story; the familiar notion of spirits not crossing water\nwhich he exemplifies in his Burmese forests by stretching threads across\nthe brook for the ghosts to pass along; the idea of the soul going forth\nembodied in an animal; and the theory of the dream being a real journey\nof the sleeper\u2019s soul. Finally, this old belief still finds, as such\nbeliefs so often do, a refuge in modern poetry:\n\n                      \u2018Yon child is dreaming far away,\n                        And is not where he seems.\u2019\n\nThis opinion, however, only constitutes one of several parts of the\ntheory of dreams in savage psychology. Another part has also a place\nhere, the view that human souls come from without to visit the sleeper,\nwho sees them as dreams. These two views are by no means incompatible.\nThe North American Indians allowed themselves the alternative of\nsupposing a dream to be either a visit from the soul of the person or\nobject dreamt of, or a sight seen by the rational soul, gone out for an\nexcursion while the sensitive soul remains in the body.[673] So the Zulu\nmay be visited in a dream by the shade of an ancestor, the itongo, who\ncomes to warn him of danger, or he may himself be taken by the itongo in\na dream to visit his distant people, and see that they are in trouble;\nas for the man who is passing into the morbid condition of the\nprofessional seer, phantoms are continually coming to talk to him in his\nsleep, till he becomes, as the expressive native phrase is, \u2018a house of\ndreams.\u2019[674] In the lower range of culture, it is perhaps most\nfrequently taken for granted that a man\u2019s apparition in a dream is a\nvisit from his disembodied spirit, which the dreamer, to use an\nexpressive Ojibwa idiom, \u2018sees when asleep.\u2019 Such a thought comes out\nclearly in the Fijian opinion that a living man\u2019s spirit may leave the\nbody, to trouble other people in their sleep;[675] or in a recent\naccount of an old Indian woman of British Columbia sending for the\nmedicine-man to drive away the dead people who came to her every\nnight.[676] A modern observer\u2019s description of the state of mind of the\nnegroes of West Africa in this respect is extremely characteristic and\ninstructive. \u2018All their dreams are construed into visits from the\nspirits of their deceased friends. The cautions, hints, and warnings\nwhich come to them through this source are received with the most\nserious and deferential attention, and are always acted upon in their\nwaking hours. The habit of relating their dreams, which is universal,\ngreatly promotes the habit of dreaming itself, and hence their sleeping\nhours are characterized by almost as much intercourse with the dead as\ntheir waking are with the living. This is, no doubt, one of the reasons\nof their excessive superstitiousness. Their imaginations become so\nlively that they can scarcely distinguish between their dreams and their\nwaking thoughts, between the real and the ideal, and they consequently\nutter falsehood without intending, and profess to see things which never\nexisted.\u2019[677]\n\nTo the Greek of old, the dream-soul was what to the modern savage it\nstill is. Sleep, loosing cares of mind, fell on Achilles as he lay by\nthe sounding sea, and there stood over him the soul of Patroklos, like\nto him altogether in stature, and the beauteous eyes, and the voice, and\nthe garments that wrapped his skin; he spake, and Achilles stretched out\nto grasp him with loving hands, but caught him not, and like a smoke the\nsoul sped twittering below the earth. Along the ages that separate us\nfrom Homeric times, the apparition in dreams of men living or dead has\nbeen a subject of philosophic speculation and of superstitious\nfear.[678] Both the phantom of the living and the ghost of the dead\nfigure in Cicero\u2019s typical tale. Two Arcadians came to Megara together,\none lodged at a friend\u2019s house, the other at an inn. In the night this\nlatter appeared to his fellow-traveller, imploring his help, for the\ninnkeeper was plotting his death; the sleeper sprang up in alarm, but\nthinking the vision of no consequence went to sleep again. Then a second\ntime his companion appeared to him, to entreat that though he had failed\nto help, he would at least avenge, for the innkeeper had killed him and\nhidden his body in a dung-cart, wherefore he charged his\nfellow-traveller to be early next morning at the city-gate before the\ncart passed out. Struck with this second dream, the traveller went as\nbidden, and there found the cart; the body of the murdered man was in\nit, and the innkeeper was brought to justice. \u2018Quid hoc somnio dici\npotest divinius!\u2019[679] Augustine discusses with reference to the nature\nof the soul various dream-stories of his time, where the apparitions of\nmen dead or living are seen in dreams. In one of the latter he himself\nfigured, for when a disciple of his, Eulogius the rhetor of Carthage,\nonce could not get to sleep for thinking of an obscure passage in\nCicero\u2019s Rhetoric, that night Augustine came to him in a dream and\nexplained it. But Augustine\u2019s tendency was toward the modern theory of\ndreams, and in this case he says it was certainly his image that\nappeared, not himself, who was far across the sea, neither knowing nor\ncaring about the matter.[680] As we survey the immense series of\ndream-stories of similar types in patristic, medi\u00e6val, and modern\nliterature, we may find it difficult enough to decide which are truth\nand which are fiction. But along the course of these myriad narratives\nof human phantoms appearing in dreams to cheer or torment, to warn or\ninform, or to demand fulfilment of their own desires, the problem of\ndream-apparitions may be traced in progress of gradual determination,\nfrom the earlier conviction that a disembodied soul really comes into\nthe presence of the sleeper, toward the later opinion that such a\nphantasm is produced in the dreamer\u2019s mind without the perception of any\nexternal objective figure.\n\nThe evidence of visions corresponds with the evidence of dreams in their\nbearing on primitive theories of the soul,[681] and the two classes of\nphenomena substantiate and supplement one another. Even in healthy\nwaking life, the savage or barbarian has never learnt to make that rigid\ndistinction between subjective and objective, between imagination and\nreality, to enforce which is one of the main results of scientific\neducation. Still less, when disordered in body and mind he sees around\nhim phantom human forms, can he distrust the evidence of his very\nsenses. Thus it comes to pass that throughout the lower civilization men\nbelieve, with the most vivid and intense belief, in the objective\nreality of the human spectres which they see in sickness, exhaustion, or\nexcitement. As will be hereafter noticed, one main reason of the\npractices of fasting, penance, narcotising by drugs, and other means of\nbringing on morbid exaltation, is that the patients may obtain the sight\nof spectral beings, from whom they look to gain spiritual knowledge and\neven worldly power. Human ghosts are among the principal of these\nphantasmal figures. There is no doubt that honest visionaries describe\nghosts as they really appear to their perception, while even the\nimpostors who pretend to see them conform to the descriptions thus\nestablished; thus, in West Africa, a man\u2019s _kla_ or soul, becoming at\nhis death a _sisa_ or ghost, can remain in the house with the corpse,\nbut is only visible to the wong-man, the spirit-doctor.[682] Sometimes\nthe phantom has the characteristic quality of not being visible to all\nof an assembled company. Thus the natives of the Antilles believed that\nthe dead appeared on the roads when one went alone, but not when many\nwent together;[683] thus among the Finns the ghosts of the dead were to\nbe seen by the shamans, but not by men generally unless in dreams.[684]\nSuch is perhaps the meaning of the description of Samuel\u2019s ghost,\nvisible to the witch of Endor, but not to Saul, for he has to ask her\nwhat it is she sees.[685] Yet this test of the nature of an apparition\nis one which easily breaks down. We know well how in civilized countries\na current rumour of some one having seen a phantom is enough to bring a\nsight of it to others whose minds are in a properly receptive state. The\ncondition of the modern ghost-seer, whose imagination passes on such\nslight excitement into positive hallucination is rather the rule than\nthe exception among uncultured and intensely imaginative tribes, whose\nminds may be thrown off their balance by a touch, a word, a gesture, an\nunaccustomed noise. Among savage tribes, however, as among civilized\nraces who have inherited remains of early philosophy formed under\nsimilar conditions, the doctrine of visibility or invisibility of\nphantoms has been obviously shaped with reference to actual experience.\nTo declare that souls or ghosts are necessarily either visible or\ninvisible, would directly contradict the evidence of men\u2019s senses. But\nto assert or imply, as the lower races do, that they are visible\nsometimes and to some persons, but not always or to every one, is to lay\ndown an explanation of facts which is not indeed our usual modern\nexplanation, but which is a perfectly rational and intelligible product\nof early science.\n\nWithout discussing on their merits the accounts of what is called\n\u2018second sight,\u2019 it may be pointed out that they are related among savage\ntribes, as when Captain Jonathan Carver obtained from a Cree\nmedicine-man a true prophecy of the arrival of a canoe with news next\nday at noon; or when Mr. J. Mason Brown, travelling with two voyageurs\non the Coppermine River, was met by Indians of the very band he was\nseeking, these having been sent by their medicine-man, who, on enquiry,\nstated that \u2018He saw them coming, and heard them talk on their\njourney.\u2019[686] These are analogous to accounts of the Highland\nsecond-sight, as when Pennant heard of a gentleman of the Hebrides, said\nto have the convenient gift of foreseeing visitors in time to get ready\nfor them, or when Dr. Johnson was told by another laird that a labouring\nman of his had predicted his return to the island, and described the\npeculiar livery his servant had been newly dressed in.[687]\n\nAs a general rule, people are apt to consider it impossible for a man to\nbe in two places at once, and indeed a saying to that effect has become\na popular saw. But the rule is so far from being universally accepted,\nthat the word \u2018bilocation\u2019 has been invented to express the miraculous\nfaculty possessed by certain Saints of the Roman Church, of being in two\nplaces at once; like St. Alfonso di Liguori, who had the useful power of\npreaching his sermon in church while he was confessing penitents at\nhome.[688] The reception and explanation of these various classes of\nstories fit perfectly with the primitive animistic theory of\napparitions, and the same is true of the following most numerous class\nof the second-sight narratives.\n\nDeath is the event which, in all stages of culture, brings thought to\nbear most intensely, though not always most healthily, on the problems\nof psychology. The apparition of the disembodied soul has in all ages\nbeen thought to bear especial relation to its departure from its body at\ndeath. This is well shown by the reception not only of a theory of\nghosts, but of a special doctrine of \u2018wraiths\u2019 or \u2018fetches.\u2019 Thus the\nKarens say that a man\u2019s spirit, appearing after death, may thus announce\nit.[689] In New Zealand it is ominous to see the figure of an absent\nperson, for if it be shadowy and the face not visible, his death may ere\nlong be expected, but if the face be seen he is dead already. A party of\nMaoris (one of whom told the story) were seated round a fire in the open\nair, when there appeared, seen only by two of them, the figure of a\nrelative left ill at home; they exclaimed, the figure vanished, and on\nthe return of the party it appeared that the sick man had died about the\ntime of the vision.[690] Examining the position of the doctrine of\nwraiths among the higher races, we find it especially prominent in three\nintellectual districts, Christian hagiology, popular folklore, and\nmodern spiritualism. St. Anthony saw the soul of St. Ammonius carried to\nheaven in the midst of choirs of angels, the same day that the holy\nhermit died five days\u2019 journey off in the desert of Nitria; when St.\nAmbrose died on Easter Eve, several newly-baptized children saw the holy\nbishop, and pointed him out to their parents, but these with their less\npure eyes could not behold him; and so forth.[691] Folklore examples\nabound in Silesia and the Tyrol, where the gift of wraith-seeing still\nflourishes, with the customary details of funerals, churches,\nfour-cross-roads, and headless phantoms, and an especial association\nwith New Year\u2019s Eve. The accounts of \u2018second-sight\u2019 from North Britain\nmostly belong to a somewhat older date. Thus the St. Kilda people used\nto be haunted by their own spectral doubles, forerunners of impending\ndeath, and in 1799 a traveller writes of the peasants of\nKirkcudbrightshire, \u2018It is common among them to fancy that they see the\nwraiths of persons dying, which will be visible to one and not to others\npresent with him. Within these last twenty years, it was hardly possible\nto meet with any person who had not seen many wraiths and ghosts in the\ncourse of his experience.\u2019 Those who discuss the authenticity of the\nsecond-sight stories as actual evidence, must bear in mind that they\nprove a little too much; they vouch not only for human apparitions, but\nfor such phantoms as demon-dogs, and for still more fanciful symbolic\nomens. Thus a phantom shroud seen in spiritual vision on a living man\npredicts his death, immediate if it is up to his head, less nearly\napproaching if it is only up to his waist; and to see in spiritual\nvision a spark of fire fall upon a person\u2019s arm or breast, is a\nforerunner of a dead child to be seen in his arms.[692] As visionaries\noften see phantoms of living persons without any remarkable event\ncoinciding with their hallucinations, it is naturally admitted that a\nman\u2019s phantom or \u2018double\u2019 may be seen without portending anything in\nparticular. The spiritualistic theory specially insists on cases of\napparition where the person\u2019s death corresponds more or less nearly with\nthe time when some friend perceives his phantom.[693] Narratives of this\nclass, which I can here only specify without arguing on them, are\nabundantly in circulation. Thus, I have an account by a lady, who \u2018saw,\nas it were, the form of some one laid out,\u2019 near the time when a brother\ndied at Melbourne, and who mentions another lady known to her, who\nthought she saw her own father look in at the church window at the\nmoment he was dying in his own house. Another account is sent me by a\nShetland lady, who relates that about twenty years ago she and a girl\nleading her pony recognized the familiar figure of one Peter Sutherland,\nwhom they knew to be at the time in ill-health in Edinburgh; he turned a\ncorner and they saw no more of him, but next week came the news of his\nsudden death.\n\nThat the apparitional human soul bears the likeness of its fleshly body,\nis the principle implicitly accepted by all who believe it really and\nobjectively present in dreams and visions. My own view is that nothing\nbut dreams and visions could have ever put into men\u2019s minds such an idea\nas that of souls being ethereal images of bodies. It is thus habitually\ntaken for granted in animistic philosophy, savage or civilized, that\nsouls set free from the earthly body are recognized by a likeness to it\nwhich they still retain, whether as ghostly wanderers on earth or\ninhabitants of the world beyond the grave. Man\u2019s spirit, says\nSwedenborg, is his mind, which lives after death in complete human form,\nand this is the poet\u2019s dictum in \u2018In Memoriam:\u2019\n\n                   \u2018Eternal form shall still divide\n                   The eternal soul from all beside;\n                     And I shall know him when we meet.\u2019\n\nThis world-wide thought, coming into view here in a multitude of cases\nfrom all grades of culture, needs no collection of ordinary instances to\nillustrate it.[694] But a quaint and special group of beliefs will serve\nto display the thoroughness with which the soul is thus conceived as an\nimage of the body. As a consistent corollary to such an opinion, it is\nargued that the mutilation of the body will have a corresponding effect\nupon the soul, and very low savage races have philosophy enough to work\nout this idea. Thus it was recorded of the Indians of Brazil by one of\nthe early European visitors, that they \u2018believe that the dead arrive in\nthe other world wounded or hacked to pieces, in fact just as they left\nthis.\u2019[695] Thus, too, the Australian who has slain his enemy will cut\noff the right thumb of the corpse, so that although the spirit will\nbecome a hostile ghost, it cannot throw with its mutilated hand the\nshadowy spear, and may be safely left to wander, malignant but\nharmless.[696] The negro fears long sickness before death, such as will\nsend him lean and feeble into the next world. His theory of the\nmutilation of soul with body could not be brought more vividly into view\nthan in that ugly story of the West Indian planter, whose slaves began\nto seek in suicide at once relief from present misery and restoration to\ntheir native land; but the white man was too cunning for them, he cut\noff the heads and hands of the corpses, and the survivors saw that not\neven death could save them from a master who could maim their very souls\nin the next world.[697] The same rude and primitive belief continues\namong nations risen far higher in intellectual rank. The Chinese hold in\nespecial horror the punishment of decapitation, considering that he who\nquits this world lacking a member will so arrive in the next, and a case\nis recorded lately of a criminal at Amoy who for this reason begged to\ndie instead by the cruel death of crucifixion, and was crucified\naccordingly.[698] The series ends as usual in the folklore of the\ncivilized world. The phantom skeleton in chains that haunted the house\nat Bologna, showed the way to the garden where was buried the real\nchained fleshless skeleton it belonged to, and came no more when the\nremains had been duly buried. When the Earl of Cornwall met the fetch of\nhis friend William Rufus carried black and naked on a black goat across\nthe Bodmin moors, he saw that it was wounded through the midst of the\nbreast; and afterwards he heard that at that very hour the king had been\nslain in the New Forest by the arrow of Walter Tirell.[699]\n\nIn studying the nature of the soul as conceived among the lower races,\nand in tracing such conceptions onward among the higher, circumstantial\ndetails are available. It is as widely recognized among mankind that\nsouls or ghosts have voices, as that they have visible forms, and indeed\nthe evidence for both is of the same nature. Men who perceive evidently\nthat souls do talk when they present themselves in dream or vision,\nnaturally take for granted at once the objective reality of the ghostly\nvoice, and of the ghostly form from which it proceeds. This is involved\nin the series of narratives of spiritual communications with living men,\nfrom savagery onward to civilization, while the more modern doctrine of\nthe subjectivity of such phenomena recognizes the phenomena themselves,\nbut offers a different explanation of them. One special conception,\nhowever, requires particular notice. This defines the spirit-voice as\nbeing a low murmur, chirp, or whistle, as it were the ghost of a voice.\nThe Algonquin Indians of North America could hear the shadow-souls of\nthe dead chirp like crickets.[700] The divine spirits of the New Zealand\ndead, coming to converse with the living, utter their words in whistling\ntones, and such utterances by a squeaking noise are mentioned elsewhere\nin Polynesia.[701] The Zulu diviner\u2019s familiar spirits are ancestral\nmanes, who talk in a low whistling tone short of a full whistle, whence\nthey have their name of \u2018imilozi\u2019 or whistlers.[702] These ideas\ncorrespond with classic descriptions of the ghostly voice, as a \u2018twitter\nor \u2018thin murmur:\u2019\n\n                     \u03a8\u03c5\u03c7\u1f74 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c7\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f20\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c0\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2,\n               \u03a8\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b3\u03c5\u03af\u03b1.\u2019[703]\n\n               \u2018Umbra cruenta Remi visa est assistere lecto,\n               Atque haec exiguo murmure verba loqui.\u2019[704]\n\nAs the attributes of the soul or ghost extend to other spiritual beings,\nand the utterances of such are to a great extent given by the voice of\nmediums, we connect these accounts with the notion that the language of\ndemons is also a low whistle or mutter, whence the well-known practice\nof whispering or murmuring charms, the \u2018susurrus necromanticus\u2019 of\nsorcerers, to whom the already cited description of \u2018wizards that peep\n(i.e. chirp) and mutter\u2019 is widely applicable.[705]\n\nThe conception of dreams and visions as caused by present objective\nfigures, and the identification of such phantom souls with the shadow\nand the breath, has led to the treatment of souls as substantial\nmaterial beings. Thus it is a usual proceeding to make openings through\nsolid materials to allow souls to pass. The Iroquois in old times used\nto leave an opening in the grave for the lingering soul to visit its\nbody, and some of them still bore holes in the coffin for the same\npurpose.[706] The Malagasy sorcerer, for the cure of a sick man who had\nlost his soul, would make a hole in a burial-house to let out a spirit\nwhich he would catch in his cap and so convey to the patient\u2019s\nhead.[707] The Chinese make a hole in the roof to let out the soul at\ndeath.[708] And lastly, the custom of opening a window or door for the\ndeparting soul when it quits the body is to this day a very familiar\nsuperstition in France, Germany, and England.[709] Again, the souls of\nthe dead are thought susceptible of being beaten, hurt and driven like\nany other living creatures. Thus the Queensland aborigines would beat\nthe air in an annual mock fight, held to scare away the souls that death\nhad let loose among the living since last year.[710] Thus North American\nIndians, when they had tortured an enemy to death, ran about crying and\nbeating with sticks to scare the ghost away; they have been known to set\nnets round their cabins to catch and keep out neighbours\u2019 departed\nsouls; fancying the soul of a dying man to go out at the wigwam roof,\nthey would habitually beat the sides with sticks to drive it forth; we\neven hear of the widow going off from her husband\u2019s funeral followed by\na person flourishing a handful of twigs about her head like a\nflyflapper, to drive off her husband\u2019s ghost and leave her free to marry\nagain.[711] With a kindlier feeling, the Congo negroes abstained for a\nwhole year after a death from sweeping the house, lest the dust should\ninjure the delicate substance of the ghost;[712] the Tonquinese avoided\nhouse-cleaning during the festival when the souls of the dead came back\nto their houses for the New Year\u2019s visit;[713] and it seems likely that\nthe special profession of the Roman \u2018everriatores\u2019 who swept the houses\nout after a funeral, was connected with a similar idea.[714] To this\nday, it remains a German peasants\u2019 saying that it is wrong to slam a\ndoor, lest one should pinch a soul in it.[715] The not uncommon practice\nof strewing ashes to show the footprints of ghosts or demons takes for\ngranted that they are substantial bodies. In the literature of animism,\nextreme tests of the weight of ghosts are now and then forthcoming. They\nrange from the declaration of a Basuto diviner that the late queen had\nbeen bestriding his shoulders, and he never felt such a weight in his\nlife, to Glanvil\u2019s story of David Hunter the neat-herd, who lifted up\nthe old woman\u2019s ghost, and she felt just like a bag of feathers in his\narms, or the pathetic German superstition that the dead mother\u2019s coming\nback in the night to suckle the baby she has left on earth, may be known\nby the hollow pressed down in the bed where she lay, and at last down to\nthe alleged modern spiritualistic reckoning of the weight of a human\nsoul at from 3 to 4 ounces.[716]\n\nExplicit statements as to the substance of soul are to be found both\namong low and high races, in an instructive series of definitions. The\nTongans imagined the human soul to be the finer or more aeriform part of\nthe body, which leaves it suddenly at the moment of death; something\ncomparable to the perfume and essence of a flower as related to the more\nsolid vegetable fibre.[717] The Greenland seers described the soul as\nthey habitually perceived it in their visions; it is pale and soft, they\nsaid, and he who tries to seize it feels nothing, for it has no flesh\nnor bone nor sinew.[718] The Caribs did not think the soul so immaterial\nas to be invisible, but said it was subtle and thin like a purified\nbody.[719] Turning to higher races, we may take the Siamese as an\nexample of a people who conceive of souls as consisting of subtle matter\nescaping sight and touch, or as united to a swiftly moving aerial\nbody.[720] In the classic world, it is recorded as an opinion of\nEpicurus that \u2018they who say the soul is incorporeal talk folly, for it\ncould neither do nor suffer anything were it such.\u2019[721] Among the\nFathers, Iren\u00e6us describes souls as incorporeal in comparison with\nmortal bodies,[722] and Tertullian relates a vision or revelation of a\ncertain Montanist prophetess, of the soul seen by her corporeally, thin\nand lucid, aerial in colour and human in form.[723] For an example of\nmedi\u00e6val doctrine, may be cited a 14th-century English poem, the\n\u2018Ayenbite of Inwyt\u2019 (i.e. \u2018Remorse of Conscience\u2019) which points out how\nthe soul, by reason of the thinness of its substance, suffers all the\nmore in purgatory:\n\n                \u2018The soul is more tendre and nesche\n                Than the bodi that hath bones and fleysche;\n                Thanne the soul that is so tendere of kinde,\n                Mote nedis hure penaunce hardere y-finde,\n                Than eni bodi that evere on live was.\u2019[724]\n\nThe doctrine of the ethereal soul passed on into more modern philosophy,\nand the European peasant holds fast to it still; as Wuttke says, the\nghosts of the dead have to him a misty and evanescent materiality, for\nthey have bodies as we have, though of other kind: they can eat and\ndrink, they can be wounded and killed.[725] Nor was the ancient doctrine\never more distinctly stated than by a modern spiritualistic writer, who\nobserves that \u2018a spirit is no immaterial substance; on the contrary, the\nspiritual organization is composed of matter ... in a very high state of\nrefinement and attenuation.\u2019[726]\n\nAmong rude races, the original conception of the human soul seems to\nhave been that of ethereality, or vaporous materiality, which has held\nso large a place in human thought ever since. In fact, the later\nmetaphysical notion of immateriality could scarcely have conveyed any\nmeaning to a savage. It is moreover to be noticed that, as to the whole\nnature and action of apparitional souls, the lower philosophy escapes\nvarious difficulties which down to modern times have perplexed\nmetaphysicians and theologians of the civilized world. Considering the\nthin ethereal body of the soul to be itself sufficient and suitable for\nvisibility, movement, and speech, the primitive animists required no\nadditional hypotheses to account for these manifestations; they had no\nplace for theories such as detailed by Calmet, as that immaterial souls\nhave their own vaporous bodies, or occasionally have such vaporous\nbodies provided for them by supernatural means to enable them to appear\nas spectres, or that they possess the power of condensing the\ncircumambient air into phantom-like bodies to invest themselves in, or\nof forming from it vocal instruments.[727] It appears to have been\nwithin systematic schools of civilized philosophy that the\ntranscendental definitions of the immaterial soul were obtained, by\nabstraction from the primitive conception of the ethereal-material soul,\nso as to reduce it from a physical to a metaphysical entity.\n\nDeparting from the body at the time of death, the soul or spirit is\nconsidered set free to linger near the tomb, to wander on earth or flit\nin the air, or to travel to the proper region of spirits\u2014the world\nbeyond the grave. The principal conceptions of the lower psychology as\nto a Future Life will be considered in the following chapters, but for\nthe present purpose of investigating the theory of souls in general, it\nwill be well to enter here upon one department of the subject. Men do\nnot stop short at the persuasion that death releases the soul to a free\nand active existence, but they quite logically proceed to assist nature,\nby slaying men in order to liberate their souls for ghostly uses. Thus\nthere arises one of the most widespread, distinct, and intelligible\nrites of animistic religion\u2014that of funeral human sacrifice for the\nservice of the dead. When a man of rank dies and his soul departs to its\nown place, wherever and whatever that place may be, it is a rational\ninference of early philosophy that the souls of attendants, slaves, and\nwives, put to death at his funeral, will make the same journey and\ncontinue their service in the next life, and the argument is frequently\nstretched further, to include the souls of new victims sacrificed in\norder that they may enter upon the same ghostly servitude. It will\nappear from the ethnography of this rite that it is not strongly marked\nin the very lowest levels of culture, but that, arising in the lower\nbarbaric stage, it develops itself in the higher, and thenceforth\ncontinues or dwindles in survival.\n\nOf the murderous practices to which this opinion leads, remarkably\ndistinct accounts may be cited from among tribes of the Indian\nArchipelago. The following account is given of the funerals of great men\namong the rude Kayans of Borneo:\u2014\u2018Slaves are killed in order that they\nmay follow the deceased and attend upon him. Before they are killed the\nrelations who surround them enjoin them to take great care of their\nmaster when they join him, to watch and shampoo him when he is\nindisposed, to be always near him, and to obey all his behests. The\nfemale relatives of the deceased then take a spear and slightly wound\nthe victims, after which the males spear them to death.\u2019 Again, the\nopinion of the Idaan is \u2018that all whom they kill in this world shall\nattend them as slaves after death. This notion of future interest in the\ndestruction of the human species is a great impediment to an intercourse\nwith them, as murder goes farther than present advantage or resentment.\nFrom the same principle they will purchase a slave, guilty of any\ncapital crime, at fourfold his value, that they may be his\nexecutioners.\u2019 With the same idea is connected the ferocious custom of\n\u2018head-hunting,\u2019 so prevalent among the Dayaks before Rajah Brooke\u2019s\ntime. They considered that the owner of every human head they could\nprocure would serve them in the next world, where, indeed, a man\u2019s rank\nwould be according to his number of heads in this. They would continue\nthe mourning for a dead man till a head was brought in, to provide him\nwith a slave to accompany him to the \u2018habitation of souls;\u2019 a father who\nlost his child would go out and kill the first man he met, as a funeral\nceremony; a young man might not marry till he had procured a head, and\nsome tribes would bury with a dead man the first head he had taken,\ntogether with spears, cloth, rice, and betel. Waylaying and murdering\nmen for their heads became, in fact, the Dayaks\u2019 national sport, and\nthey remarked \u2018the white men read books, we hunt for heads\ninstead.\u2019[728] Of such rites in the Pacific islands, the most hideously\npurposeful accounts reach us from the Fiji group. Till lately, a main\npart of the ceremony of a great man\u2019s funeral was the strangling of\nwives, friends, and slaves, for the distinct purpose of attending him\ninto the world of spirits. Ordinarily the first victim was the wife of\nthe deceased, and more than one if he had several, and their corpses,\noiled as for a feast, clothed with new fringed girdles, with heads\ndressed and ornamented, and vermilion and turmeric powder spread on\ntheir faces and bosoms, were laid by the side of the dead warrior.\nAssociates and inferior attendants were likewise slain, and these bodies\nwere spoken of as \u2018grass for bedding the grave.\u2019 When Ra Mbithi, the\npride of Somosomo, was lost at sea, seventeen of his wives were killed;\nand after the news of the massacre of the Namena people, in 1839, eighty\nwomen were strangled to accompany the spirits of their murdered\nhusbands. Such sacrifices took place under the same pressure of public\nopinion which kept up the widow-burning in modern India. The Fijian\nwidow was worked upon by her relatives with all the pressure of\npersuasion and of menace; she understood well that life to her\nhenceforth would mean a wretched existence of neglect, disgrace, and\ndestitution; and tyrannous custom, as hard to struggle against in the\nsavage as in the civilized world, drove her to the grave. Thus, far from\nresisting, she became importunate for death, and the new life to come,\nand till public opinion reached a more enlightened state, the\nmissionaries often used their influence in vain to save from the\nstrangling-cord some wife whom they could have rescued, but who herself\nrefused to live. So repugnant to the native mind was the idea of a\nchieftain going unattended into the other world, that the missionaries\u2019\nprohibition of the cherished custom was one reason of the popular\ndislike to Christianity. Many of the nominal Christians, when once a\nchief of theirs was shot from an ambush, esteemed it most fortunate that\na stray shot at the same time killed a young man at a distance from him,\nand thus provided a companion for the spirit of the slain chief.[729]\n\nIn America, the funeral human sacrifice makes its characteristic\nappearance. A good example may be taken from among the Osages, whose\nhabit was sometimes to plant in the cairn raised over a corpse a pole\nwith an enemy\u2019s scalp hanging to the top. Their notion was that by\ntaking an enemy and suspending his scalp over the grave of a deceased\nfriend, the spirit of the victim became subjected to the spirit of the\nburied warrior in the land of spirits. Hence the last and best service\nthat could be performed for a deceased relative was to take an enemy\u2019s\nlife, and thus transmit it by his scalp.[730] The correspondence of this\nidea with that just mentioned among the Dayaks is very striking. With a\nsimilar intention, the Caribs would slay on the dead master\u2019s grave any\nof his slaves they could lay hands on.[731] Among the native peoples\nrisen to considerably higher grades of social and political life, these\npractices were not suppressed but exaggerated, in the ghastly sacrifices\nof warriors, slaves, and wives, who departed to continue their duteous\noffices at the funeral of the chief or monarch in Central America[732]\nand Mexico,[733] in Bogota[734] and Peru.[735] It is interesting to\nnotice, in somewhat favourable contrast with these customs of\ncomparatively cultured American nations, the practice of certain rude\ntribes of the North-West. The Quakeolths, for instance, did not actually\nsacrifice the widow, but they made her rest her head on her husband\u2019s\ncorpse while it was being burned, until at last she was dragged more\ndead than alive from the flames; if she recovered, she collected her\nhusband\u2019s ashes and carried them about with her for three years, during\nwhich any levity or deficiency of grief would render her an outcast.\nThis looks like a mitigated survival from an earlier custom of actual\nwidow-burning.[736]\n\nOf such funeral rites, carried out to the death, graphic and horrid\ndescriptions are recorded in the countries across Africa\u2014East, Central,\nand West. A headman of the Wadoe is buried sitting in a shallow pit, and\nwith the corpse a male and female slave alive, he with a bill-hook in\nhis hand to cut fuel for his lord in the death-world, she seated on a\nlittle stool with the dead chief\u2019s head in her lap. A chief of Unyamwezi\nis entombed in a vaulted pit, sitting on a low stool with a bow in his\nright hand, and provided with a pot of native beer; with him are shut in\nalive three women slaves, and the ceremony is concluded with a libation\nof beer on the earth heaped up above them all. The same idea which in\nGuinea makes it common for the living to send messages by the dying to\nthe dead, is developed in Ashanti and Dahome into a monstrous system of\nmassacre. The King of Dahome must enter Deadland with a ghostly court of\nhundreds of wives, eunuchs, singers, drummers, and soldiers. Nor is this\nall. Captain Burton thus describes the yearly \u2018Customs:\u2019\u2014\u2018They\nperiodically supply the departed monarch with fresh attendants in the\nshadowy world. For unhappily these murderous scenes are an expression,\nlamentably mistaken but perfectly sincere, of the liveliest filial\npiety.\u2019 Even this annual slaughter must be supplemented by almost daily\nmurder:\u2014\u2018Whatever action, however trivial, is performed by the King, it\nmust dutifully be reported to his sire in the shadowy realm. A victim,\nalmost always a war-captive, is chosen; the message is delivered to him,\nan intoxicating draught of rum follows it, and he is dispatched to Hades\nin the best of humours.\u2019[737] In southern districts of Africa, accounts\nof the same class begin in Congo and Angola with the recorded slaying of\nthe dead man\u2019s favourite wives, to live with him in the other world, a\npractice still in vogue among the Chevas of the Zambesi district, and\nformerly known among the Maravis; while the funeral sacrifice of\nattendants with a chief is a thing of the past among the Barotse, as\namong the Zulus, who yet have not forgotten the days when the chief\u2019s\nservants and attendant warriors were cast into the fire which had\nconsumed his body, that they might go with him, and prepare things\nbeforehand, and get food for him.[738]\n\nIf now we turn to the records of Asia and Europe, we shall find the\nsacrifice of attendants for the dead widely prevalent in both continents\nin old times, while in the east its course may be traced continuing\nonward to our own day. The two Mohammedans who travelled in Southern\nAsia in the ninth century relate that on the accession of certain kings\na quantity of rice is prepared, which is eaten by some three or four\nhundred men, who present themselves voluntarily to share it, thereby\nundertaking to burn themselves at the monarch\u2019s death. With this\ncorresponds Marco Polo\u2019s thirteenth-century account in Southern India of\nthe king of Maabar\u2019s guard of horsemen, who, when he dies and his body\nis burnt, throw themselves into the fire to do him service in the next\nworld.[739] In the seventeenth century the practice is described as\nstill prevailing in Japan, where, on the death of a nobleman, from ten\nto thirty of his servants put themselves to death by the \u2018hara kari,\u2019 or\nripping-up, having indeed engaged during his lifetime, by the solemn\ncompact of drinking wine together, to give their bodies to their lord at\nhis death. Yet already in ancient times such funeral sacrifices were\npassing into survival, when the servants who followed their master in\ndeath were replaced by clay images set up at the tomb.[740] Among the\nOssetes of the Caucasus, an interesting relic of widow-sacrifice is\nstill kept up: the dead man\u2019s widow and his saddle-horse are led thrice\nround the grave, and no man may marry the widow or mount the horse thus\ndevoted.[741] In China, legend preserves the memory of the ancient\nfuneral human sacrifice. The brother of Chin Yang, a disciple of\nConfucius, died, and his widow and steward wished to bury some living\npersons with him, to serve him in the regions below. Thereupon the sage\nsuggested that the proper victims would be the widow and steward\nthemselves, but this not precisely meeting their views, the matter\ndropped, and the deceased was interred without attendants. This story at\nleast shows the rite to have been not only known but understood in China\nlong ago. In modern China, the suicide of widows to accompany their\nhusbands is a recognized practice, sometimes even performed in public.\nMoreover, the ceremonies of providing sedan-bearers and an\numbrella-bearer for the dead, and sending mounted horsemen to announce\nbeforehand his arrival to the authorities of Hades, although these\nbearers and messengers are only made of paper and burnt, seem to\nrepresent survivals of a more murderous reality.[742]\n\nThe Aryan race gives striking examples of the rite of funeral human\nsacrifice in its sternest shape, whether in history or in myth, that\nrecords as truly as history the manners of old days.[743] The episodes\nof the Trojan captives laid with the horses and hounds on the funeral\npile of Patroklos, and of Evadne throwing herself into the funeral pile\nof her husband, and Pausanias\u2019s narrative of the suicide of the three\nMessenian widows, are among its Greek representatives.[744] In\nScandinavian myth, Baldr is burnt with his dwarf foot-page, his horse\nand saddle; Brynhild lies on the pile by her beloved Sigurd, and men and\nmaids follow after them on the hell-way.[745] The Gauls in C\u00e6sar\u2019s time\nburned at the dead man\u2019s sumptuous funeral whatever was dear to him,\nanimals also, and much-loved slaves and clients.[746] Old mentions of\nSlavonic heathendom describe the burning of the dead with clothing and\nweapons, horses and hounds, with faithful servants, and above all, with\nwives. Thus St. Boniface says that \u2018the Wends keep matrimonial love with\nso great zeal, that the wife may refuse to survive her husband, and she\nis held praiseworthy among women who slays herself by her own hand, that\nshe may be burnt on one pyre with her lord.\u2019[747] This Aryan rite of\nwidow-sacrifice has not only an ethnographic and antiquarian interest,\nbut even a place in modern politics. In Brahmanic India the widow of a\nHindu of the Brahman or the Kshatriya caste was burnt on the funeral\npile with her husband, as a _sat\u00ee_ or \u2018good woman,\u2019 which word has\npassed into English as _suttee_. Mentioned in classic and medi\u00e6val\ntimes, the practice was in full vigour at the beginning of the last\ncentury.[748] Often one dead husband took many wives with him. Some went\nwillingly and gaily to the new life, many were driven by force of\ncustom, by fear of disgrace, by family persuasion, by priestly threats\nand promises, by sheer violence. When the rite was suppressed under\nmodern British rule, the priesthood resisted to the uttermost, appealing\nto the Veda, as sanctioning the ordinance, and demanding that the\nforeign rulers should respect it. Yet in fact, as Prof. H. H. Wilson\nproved, the priests had actually falsified their sacred Veda in support\nof a rite enjoined by long and inveterate prejudice, but not by the\ntraditional standards of Hindu faith. The ancient Brahmanic funeral\nrites have been minutely detailed from the Sanskrit authorities in an\nessay by Prof. Max M\u00fcller. Their directions are that the widow is to be\nset on the funeral pile with her husband\u2019s corpse, and if he be a\nwarrior his bow is to be placed there too. But then a brother-in-law or\nadopted child or old servant is to lead the widow down again at the\nsummons, \u2018Rise, woman, come to the world of life; thou sleepest nigh\nunto him whose life is gone. Come to us. Thou hast thus fulfilled thy\nduties of a wife to the husband who once took thy hand, and made thee a\nmother.\u2019 The bow, however, is to be broken and thrown back upon the\npile, and the dead man\u2019s sacrificial instruments are to be laid with him\nand really consumed. While admitting that the modern ordinance of\nSuttee-burning is a corrupt departure from the early Brahmanic ritual,\nwe may nevertheless find reason to consider the practice as not a new\ninvention by the later Hindu priesthood, but as the revival, under\ncongenial influences, of an ancient Aryan rite belonging originally to a\nperiod even earlier than the Veda. The ancient authorized ceremony looks\nas though, in a primitive form of the rite, the widow had been actually\nsent with the dead, for which real sacrifice a humaner law substituted a\nmere pretence. This view is supported by the existence of an old and\nexpress prohibition of the wife being sacrificed, a prohibition\nseemingly directed against a real custom, \u2018to follow the dead husband is\nprohibited, so says the law of the Brahmans. With regard to the other\ncastes this law for women may be or may not be.\u2019[749] To treat the Hindu\nwidow-burning as a case of survival and revival seems to me most in\naccordance with a general ethnographic view of the subject.\nWidow-sacrifice is found in various regions of the world under a low\nstate of civilization, and this fits with the hypothesis of its having\nbelonged to the Aryan race while yet in an early and barbarous\ncondition. Thus the prevalence of a rite of suttee like that of modern\nIndia among ancient Aryan nations settled in Europe, Greeks,\nScandinavians, Germans, Slaves, may be simply accounted for by direct\ninheritance from the remote common antiquity of them all. If this theory\nbe sound, it will follow that ancient as the Vedic ordinances may be,\nthey represent in this matter a reform and a reaction against a yet more\nancient barbaric rite of widow-sacrifice, which they prohibited in fact,\nbut yet kept up in symbol. The history of religion displays but too\nplainly the proneness of mankind to relapse, in spite of reformation,\ninto the lower and darker condition of the past. Stronger and more\ntenacious than even Vedic authority, the hideous custom of the suttee\nmay have outlived an attempt to suppress it in early Brahmanic times,\nand the English rulers, in abolishing it, may have abolished a relic not\nmerely of degenerate Hinduism, but of the far more remotely ancient\nsavagery out of which the Aryan civilization had grown.\n\nIn now passing from the consideration of the souls of men to that of the\nsouls of the lower animals, we have first to inform ourselves as to the\nsavage man\u2019s idea, which is very different from the civilized man\u2019s, of\nthe nature of these lower animals. A remarkable group of observances\ncustomary among rude tribes will bring this distinction sharply into\nview. Savages talk quite seriously to beasts alive or dead as they would\nto men alive or dead, offer them homage, ask pardon when it is their\npainful duty to hunt and kill them. A North American Indian will reason\nwith a horse as if rational. Some will spare the rattlesnake, fearing\nthe vengeance of its spirit if slain; others will salute the creature\nreverently, bid it welcome as a friend from the land of spirits,\nsprinkle a pinch of tobacco on its head for an offering, catch it by the\ntail and dispatch it with extreme dexterity, and carry off its skin as a\ntrophy. If an Indian is attacked and torn by a bear, it is that the\nbeast fell upon him intentionally in anger, perhaps to revenge the hurt\ndone to another bear. When a bear is killed, they will beg pardon of\nhim, or even make him condone the offence by smoking the peace-pipe with\nhis murderers, who put the pipe in his mouth and blow down it, begging\nhis spirit not to take revenge.[750] So in Africa, the Kafirs will hunt\nthe elephant, begging him not to tread on them and kill them, and when\nhe is dead they will assure him that they did not kill him on purpose,\nand they will bury his trunk, for the elephant is a mighty chief, and\nhis trunk is his hand that he may hurt withal. The Congo people will\neven avenge such a murder by a pretended attack on the hunters who did\nthe deed.[751] Such customs are common among the lower Asiatic tribes.\nThe Stiens of Kambodia ask pardon of the beast they have killed;[752]\nthe Ainos of Yesso kill the bear, offer obeisance and salutation to him,\nand cut up his carcase.[753] The Koriaks, if they have slain a bear or\nwolf, will flay him, dress one of their people in the skin, and dance\nround him, chanting excuses that they did not do it, and especially\nlaying the blame on a Russian. But if it is a fox, they take his skin,\nwrap his dead body in hay, and sneering tell him to go to his own people\nand say what famous hospitality he has had, and how they gave him a new\ncoat instead of his old one.[754] The Samoyeds excuse themselves to the\nslain bear, telling him it was the Russians who did it, and that a\nRussian knife will cut him up.[755] The Goldi will set up the slain\nbear, call him \u2018my lord\u2019 and do ironical homage to him, or taking him\nalive will fatten him in a cage, call him \u2018son\u2019 and \u2018brother,\u2019 and kill\nand eat him as a sacrifice at a solemn festival.[756] In Borneo, the\nDayaks, when they have caught an alligator with a baited hook and rope,\naddress him with respect and soothing till they have his legs fast, and\nthen mocking call him \u2018rajah\u2019 and \u2018grandfather.\u2019[757] Thus when the\nsavage gets over his fears, he still keeps up in ironical merriment the\nreverence which had its origin in trembling sincerity. Even now the\nNorse hunter will say with horror of a bear that will attack man, that\nhe can be \u2018no Christian bear.\u2019\n\nThe sense of an absolute psychical distinction between man and beast, so\nprevalent in the civilized world, is hardly to be found among the lower\nraces. Men to whom the cries of beasts and birds seem like human\nlanguage, and their actions guided as it were by human thought,\nlogically enough allow the existence of souls to beasts, birds, and\nreptiles, as to men. The lower psychology cannot but recognize in beasts\nthe very characteristics which it attributes to the human soul, namely,\nthe phenomena of life and death, will and judgment, and the phantom seen\nin vision or in dream. As for believers, savage or civilized, in the\ngreat doctrine of metempsychosis, these not only consider that an animal\nmay have a soul, but that this soul may have inhabited a human being,\nand thus the creature may be in fact their own ancestor or once familiar\nfriend. A line of facts, arranged as waymarks along the course of\ncivilization, will serve to indicate the history of opinion from\nsavagery onward, as to the souls of animals during life and after death.\nNorth American Indians held every animal to have its spirit, and these\nspirits their future life; the soul of the Canadian dog went to serve\nhis master in the other world; among the Sioux, the prerogative of\nhaving four souls was not confined to man, but belonged also to the\nbear, the most human of animals.[758] The Greenlanders considered that a\nsick human soul might be replaced by the sorcerer with a fresh healthy\nsoul of a hare, a reindeer, or a young child.[759] Maori tale-tellers\nhave heard of the road by which the spirits of dogs descend to Reinga,\nthe Hades of the departed; the Hovas of Madagascar know that the ghosts\nof beasts and men, dwelling in a great mountain in the south called\nAmbondrombe, come out occasionally to walk among the tombs or\nexecution-places of criminals.[760] The Kamchadals held that every\ncreature, even the smallest fly, would live again in the\nunder-world.[761] The Kukis of Assam think that the ghost of every\nanimal a Kuki kills in the chase or for the feast will belong to him in\nthe next life, even as the enemy he slays in the field will then become\nhis slave. The Karens apply the doctrine of the spirit or personal\nlife-phantom, which is apt to wander from the body and thus suffer\ninjury, equally to men and to animals.[762] The Zulus say the cattle\nthey kill come to life again, and become the property of the dwellers in\nthe world beneath.[763] The Siamese butcher, when in defiance of the\nvery principles of his Buddhism he slaughters an ox, before he kills the\ncreature has at least the grace to beseech its spirit to seek a happier\nabode.[764] In connexion with such transmigration, Pythagorean and\nPlatonic philosophy gives to the lower animals undying souls, while\nother classic opinion may recognize in beasts only an inferior order of\nsoul, only the \u2018anima\u2019 but not the human \u2018animus\u2019 besides. Thus Juvenal:\n\n                \u2018Principio indulsit communis conditor illis\n                Tantum animas; nobis animum quoque....\u2019[765]\n\nThrough the middle ages, controversy as to the psychology of brutes has\nlasted on into our own times, ranging between two extremes; on the one\nthe theory of Descartes which reduced animals to mere machines, on the\nother what Mr. Alger defines as \u2018the faith that animals have immaterial\nand deathless souls.\u2019 Among modern speculations may be instanced that of\nWesley, who thought that in the next life animals will be raised even\nabove their bodily and mental state at the creation, \u2018the horridness of\ntheir appearance will be exchanged for their prim\u00e6val beauty,\u2019 and it\neven may be that they will be made what men are now, creatures capable\nof religion. Adam Clarke\u2019s argument for the future life of animals rests\non abstract justice: whereas they did not sin, but yet are involved in\nthe sufferings of sinful man, and cannot have in the present state the\nhappiness designed for them, it is reasonable that they must have it in\nanother.[766] Although, however, the primitive belief in the souls of\nanimals still survives to some extent in serious philosophy, it is\nobvious that the tendency of educated opinion on the question whether\nbrutes have soul, as distinguished from life and mind, has for ages been\nin a negative and sceptical direction. The doctrine has fallen from its\nonce high estate. It belonged originally to real, though rude science.\nIt has now sunk to become a favourite topic in that mild speculative\ntalk which still does duty so largely as intellectual conversation, and\neven then its propounders defend it with a lurking consciousness of its\nbeing after all a piece of sentimental nonsense.\n\nAnimals being thus considered in the primitive psychology to have souls\nlike human beings, it follows as the simplest matter of course that\ntribes who kill wives and slaves, to dispatch their souls on errands of\nduty with their departed lords, may also kill animals in order that\ntheir spirits may do such service as is proper to them. The Pawnee\nwarrior\u2019s horse is slain on his grave to be ready for him to mount\nagain, and the Comanche\u2019s best horses are buried with his favourite\nweapons and his pipe, all alike to be used in the distant happy\nhunting-grounds.[767] In South America not only do such rites occur, but\nthey reach a practically disastrous extreme. Patagonian tribes, says\nD\u2019Orbigny, believe in another life, where they are to enjoy perfect\nhappiness, therefore they bury with the deceased his arms and ornaments,\nand even kill on his tomb all the animals which belonged to him, that he\nmay find them in the abode of bliss; and this opposes an insurmountable\nbarrier to all civilization, by preventing them from accumulating\nproperty and fixing their habitations.[768] Not only do Pope\u2019s now\nhackneyed lines express a real motive with which the Indian\u2019s dog is\nburied with him, but on the North American continent the spirit of the\ndog has another remarkable office to perform. Certain Esquimaux, as\nCranz relates, would lay a dog\u2019s head in a child\u2019s grave, that the soul\nof the dog, who is everywhere at home, might guide the helpless infant\nto the land of souls. In accordance with this, Captain Scoresby in\nJameson\u2019s Land found a dog\u2019s skull in a small grave, probably a child\u2019s.\nAgain, in the distant region of the Aztecs, one of the principal funeral\nceremonies was to slaughter a techichi, or native dog; it was burnt or\nburied with the corpse, with a cotton thread fastened to its neck, and\nits office was to convey the deceased across the deep waters of\nChiuhnahuapan, on the way to the Land of the Dead.[769] The dead\nBuraet\u2019s favourite horse, led saddled to the grave, killed, and flung\nin, may serve for a Tatar example.[770] In Tonquin, even wild animals\nhave been customarily drowned at funeral ceremonies of princes, to be at\nthe service of the departed in the next world.[771] Among Semitic\ntribes, an instance of the custom may be found in the Arab sacrifice of\na camel on the grave, for the dead man\u2019s spirit to ride upon.[772] Among\nthe nations of the Aryan race in Europe, the prevalence of such rites is\ndeep, wide, and full of purpose. Thus, warriors were provided in death\nwith horses and housings, with hounds and falcons. Customs thus\ndescribed in chronicle and legend, are vouched for in our own time by\nthe opening of old barbaric burial-places. How clear a relic of savage\nmeaning lies here may be judged from a Livonian account as late as the\nfourteenth century, which relates how men and women slaves, sheep and\noxen, with other things, were burnt with the dead, who, it was believed,\nwould reach some region of the living, and find there, with the\nmultitude of cattle and slaves, a country of life and happiness.[773] As\nusual, these rites may be traced onward in survival. The Mongols, who\nformerly slaughtered camels and horses at their owner\u2019s burial, have\nbeen induced to replace the actual sacrifice by a gift of the cattle to\nthe Lamas.[774] The Hindus offer a black cow to the Brahmans, in order\nto secure their passage across the Vaitaran\u00ee, the river of death, and\nwill often die grasping the cow\u2019s tail as if to swim across in\nherdsman\u2019s fashion, holding on to a cow.[775] It is mentioned as a\nbelief in Northern Europe that he who has given a cow to the poor will\nfind a cow to take him over the bridge of the dead, and a custom of\nleading a cow in the funeral procession is said to have been kept up to\nmodern times.[776] All these rites probably belong together as connected\nwith ancient funeral sacrifice, and the survival of the custom of\nsacrificing the warrior\u2019s horse at his tomb is yet more striking.\nSaint-Foix long ago put the French evidence very forcibly. Mentioning\nthe horse led at the funeral of Charles VI., with the four\nvalets-de-pied in black, and bareheaded, holding the corners of its\ncaparison, he recalls the horses and servants killed and buried with\npr\u00e6-Christian kings. And that his readers may not think this an\nextraordinary idea, he brings forward the records of property and horses\nbeing presented at the offertory in Paris, in 1329, of Edward III.\npresenting horses at King John\u2019s funeral in London, and of the funeral\nservice for Bertrand Duguesclin, at St. Denis, in 1389, when horses were\noffered, the Bishop of Auxerre laid his hand on their heads, and they\nwere afterwards compounded for.[777] Germany retained the actual\nsacrifice within the memory of living men. A cavalry general, Count\nFriedrich Kasimir Boos von Waldeck, was buried at Treves in 1781\naccording to the forms of the Teutonic Order; his horse was led in the\nprocession, and the coffin having been lowered into the grave the horse\nwas killed and thrown in upon it.[778] This was, perhaps, the last\noccasion when such a sacrifice was consummated in solemn form in Europe.\nBut that pathetic incident of a soldier\u2019s funeral, the leading of the\nsaddled and bridled charger in the mournful procession, keeps up to this\nday a lingering reminiscence of the grim religious rite now passed away.\n\nPlants, partaking with animals the phenomena of life and death, health\nand sickness, not unnaturally have some kind of soul ascribed to them.\nIn fact, the notion of a vegetable soul, common to plants and to the\nhigher organisms possessing an animal soul in addition, was familiar to\nmedi\u00e6val philosophy, and is not yet forgotten by naturalists. But in the\nlower ranges of culture, at least within one wide district of the world,\nthe souls of plants are much more fully identified with the souls of\nanimals. The Society Islanders seem to have attributed \u2018varua,\u2019 i.e.\nsurviving soul or spirit, not to men only but to animals and\nplants.[779] The Dayaks of Borneo not only consider men and animals to\nhave a spirit or living principle, whose departure from the body causes\nsickness and eventually death, but they also give to the rice its\n\u2018samangat padi,\u2019 or \u2018spirit of the paddy,\u2019 and they hold feasts to\nretain this soul securely, lest the crop should decay.[780] The Karens\nsay that plants as well as men and animals have their \u2018l\u00e0\u2019 (\u2018kelah\u2019),\nand the spirit of sickly rice is here also called back like a human\nspirit considered to have left the body. Their formulas for the purpose\nhave even been written down, and this is part of one:\u2014\u2018O come, rice\nkelah, come. Come to the field. Come to the rice.... Come from the West.\nCome from the East. From the throat of the bird, from the maw of the\nape, from the throat of the elephant.... From all granaries come. O rice\nkelah, come to the rice.\u2019[781] There is reason to think that the\ndoctrine of the spirits of plants lay deep in the intellectual history\nof South-East Asia, but was in great measure superseded under Buddhist\ninfluence. The Buddhist books show that in the early days of their\nreligion, it was matter of controversy whether trees had souls, and\ntherefore whether they might lawfully be injured. Orthodox Buddhism\ndecided against the tree-souls, and consequently against the scruple to\nharm them, declaring trees to have no mind or sentient principle, though\nadmitting that certain dewas or spirits do reside in the body of trees,\nand speak from within them. Buddhists also relate that a heterodox sect\nkept up the early doctrine of the actual animate life of trees, in\nconnexion with which may be remembered Marco Polo\u2019s somewhat doubtful\nstatement as to certain austere Indians objecting to green herbs for\nsuch a reason, and some other passages from later writers. The subject\nof the spirits of plants is an obscure one, whether from the lower races\nnot having definite opinions, or from our not finding it easy to trace\nthem.[782] The evidence from funeral sacrifices, so valuable as to most\ndepartments of early psychology, fails us here, from plants not being\nthought suitable to send for the service of the dead.[783] Yet, as we\nshall see more fully elsewhere, there are two topics which bear closely\non the matter. On the one hand, the doctrine of transmigration widely\nand clearly recognises the idea of trees or smaller plants being\nanimated by human souls; on the other, the belief in tree-spirits and\nthe practice of tree-worship involve notions more or less closely\ncoinciding with that of tree-souls, as when the classic hamadryad dies\nwith her tree, or when the Talein of South-East Asia, considering every\ntree to have a demon or spirit, offers prayers before he cuts one down.\n\nThus far the details of the lower animistic philosophy are not very\nunfamiliar to modern students. The primitive view of the souls of men\nand beasts, as asserted or acted on in the lower and middle levels of\nculture, so far belongs to current civilized thought, that those who\nhold the doctrine to be false, and the practices based upon it futile,\ncan nevertheless understand and sympathise with the lower nations to\nwhom they are matters of the most sober and serious conviction. Nor is\neven the notion of a separable spirit or soul as the cause of life in\nplants too incongruous with ordinary ideas to be readily appreciable.\nBut the theory of souls in the lower culture stretches beyond this\nlimit, to take in a conception much stranger to modern thought. Certain\nhigh savage races distinctly hold, and a large proportion of other\nsavage and barbarian races make a more or less close approach to, a\ntheory of separable and surviving souls or spirits belonging to stocks\nand stones, weapons, boats, food, clothes, ornaments, and other objects\nwhich to us are not merely soulless but lifeless.\n\nYet, strange as such a notion may seem to us at first sight, if we place\nourselves by an effort in the intellectual position of an uncultured\ntribe, and examine the theory of object-souls from their point of view,\nwe shall hardly pronounce it irrational. In discussing the origin of\nmyth, some account has been already given of the primitive stage of\nthought in which personality and life are ascribed not to men and beasts\nonly, but to things. It has been shown how what we call inanimate\nobjects\u2014rivers, stones, trees, weapons, and so forth\u2014are treated as\nliving intelligent beings, talked to, propitiated, punished for the harm\nthey do. Hume, whose \u2018Natural History of Religion\u2019 is perhaps more than\nany other work the source of modern opinions as to the development of\nreligion, comments on the influence of this personifying stage of\nthought. \u2018There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all\nbeings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those qualities\nwith which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are\nintimately conscious.... The _unknown causes_, which continually employ\ntheir thought, appearing always in the same aspect, are all apprehended\nto be of the same kind or species. Nor is it long before we ascribe to\nthem thought and reason, and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and\nfigures of men, in order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with\nourselves.\u2019 Auguste Comte has ventured to bring such a state of thought\nunder terms of strict definition in his conception of the primary mental\ncondition of mankind\u2014a state of \u2018pure fetishism, constantly\ncharacterized by the free and direct exercise of our primitive tendency\nto conceive all external bodies soever, natural or artificial, as\nanimated by a life essentially analogous to our own, with mere\ndifferences of intensity.\u2019[784] Our comprehension of the lower stages of\nmental culture depends much on the thoroughness with which we can\nappreciate this primitive, childlike conception, and in this our best\nguide may be the memory of our own childish days. He who recollects when\nthere was still personality to him in posts and sticks, chairs, and\ntoys, may well understand how the infant philosophy of mankind could\nextend the notion of vitality to what modern science only recognises as\nlifeless things; thus one main part of the lower animistic doctrine as\nto souls of objects is accounted for. The doctrine requires for its full\nconception of a soul not only life, but also a phantom or apparitional\nspirit; this development, however, follows without difficulty, for the\nevidence of dreams and visions applies to the spirits of objects in much\nthe same manner as to human ghosts. Everyone who has seen visions while\nlightheaded in fever, everyone who has ever dreamt a dream, has seen the\nphantoms of objects as well as of persons. How then can we charge the\nsavage with far-fetched absurdity for taking into his philosophy and\nreligion an opinion which rests on the very evidence of his senses? The\nnotion is implicitly recognized in his accounts of ghosts, which do not\ncome naked, but clothed, and even armed; of course there must be spirits\nof garments and weapons, seeing that the spirits of men come bearing\nthem. It will indeed place savage philosophy in no unfavourable light,\nif we compare this extreme animistic development of it with the popular\nopinion still surviving in civilized countries, as to ghosts and the\nnature of the human soul as connected with them. When the ghost of\nHamlet\u2019s father appeared armed cap-a-pe,\n\n                  \u2018Such was the very armour he had on,\n                  When he the ambitious Norway combated.\u2019\n\nAnd thus it is a habitual feature of the ghost-stories of the civilized,\nas of the savage world, that the ghost comes dressed, and even dressed\nin well-known clothing worn in life. Hearing as well as sight testifies\nto the phantoms of objects: the clanking of ghostly chains and the\nrustling of ghostly dresses are described in the literature of\napparitions. Now by the savage theory, according to which the ghost and\nhis clothes are alike real and objective, and by the modern scientific\ntheory, according to which both ghost and garment are alike imaginary\nand subjective, the facts of apparitions are rationally met. But the\nmodern vulgar who ignore or repudiate the notion of ghosts of things,\nwhile retaining the notion of ghosts of persons, have fallen into a\nhybrid state of opinion which has neither the logic of the savage nor of\nthe civilized philosopher.\n\nAmong the lower races of mankind, three have been observed to hold most\nexplicitly and distinctly the doctrine of object-souls. These are the\nAlgonquin tribes, extending over a great district of North America, the\nislanders of the Fijian group, and the Karens of Burma. Among the\nIndians of North America, Father Charlevoix wrote, souls are, as it\nwere, the shadows and the animated images of the body, and it is by a\nconsequence of this principle that they believe everything to be animate\nin the universe. This missionary was especially conversant with the\nAlgonquins, and it was among one of their tribes, the Ojibwas, that\nKeating noticed the opinion that not only men and beasts have souls, but\ninorganic things, such as kettles, &c., have in them a similar essence.\nIn the same district Father Le Jeune had described, in the seventeenth\ncentury, the belief that the souls, not only of men and animals, but of\nhatchets and kettles, had to cross the water to the Great Village, out\nwhere the sun sets.[785] In interesting correspondence with this quaint\nthought is Mariner\u2019s description of the Fiji doctrine\u2014\u2018If an animal or a\nplant die, its soul immediately goes to Bolotoo; if a stone or any other\nsubstance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay, artificial\nbodies have equal good luck with men, and hogs, and yams. If an axe or a\nchisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for the service of\nthe gods. If a house is taken down or any way destroyed, its immortal\npart will find a situation on the plains of Bolotoo; and, to confirm\nthis doctrine, the Fiji people can show you a sort of natural well, or\ndeep hole in the ground, at one of their islands, across the bottom of\nwhich runs a stream of water, in which you may clearly perceive the\nsouls of men and women, beasts and plants, of stocks and stones, canoes\nand houses, and of all the broken utensils of this frail world,\nswimming, or rather tumbling along one over the other pell-mell into the\nregions of immortality.\u2019 A full generation later the Rev. Thomas\nWilliams, while remarking that the escape of brutes and lifeless\nsubstances to the spirit-land of Mbulu does not receive universal credit\namong the Fijians, nevertheless confirms the older account of it:\u2014\u2018Those\nwho profess to have seen the souls of canoes, houses, plants, pots, or\nany artificial bodies, swimming with other relics of this frail world on\nthe stream of the Kauvandra well, which bears them into the regions of\nimmortality, believe this doctrine as a matter of course; and so do\nthose who have seen the footmarks left about the same well by the ghosts\nof dogs, pigs, &c.\u2019[786] The theory among the Karens is stated by the\nRev. E. B. Cross, as follows:\u2014\u2018Every object is supposed to have its\n\u201ckelah.\u201d Axes and knives, as well as trees and plants, are supposed to\nhave their separate \u201ckelahs.\u201d\u2019 \u2018The Karen, with his axe and cleaver, may\nbuild his house, cut his rice, and conduct his affairs, after death as\nbefore.\u2019[787]\n\nAs so many races perform funeral sacrifices of men and animals, in order\nto dispatch their souls for the service of the soul of the deceased, so\ntribes who hold this doctrine of object-souls very rationally sacrifice\nobjects, in order to transmit these souls. Among the Algonquin tribes,\nthe sacrifice of objects for the dead was a habitual rite, as when we\nread of a warrior\u2019s corpse being buried with musket and war-club,\ncalumet and war-paint, and a public address being made to the body at\nburial concerning his future path; while in like manner a woman would be\nburied with her paddle and kettle, and the carrying-strap for the\neverlasting burden of her heavily-laden life. That the purpose of such\nofferings is the transmission of the object\u2019s spirit or phantom to the\npossession of the man\u2019s is explicitly stated as early as 1623 by Father\nLallemant; when the Indians buried kettles, furs, &c., with the dead,\nthey said that the bodies of the things remained, but their souls went\nto the dead who used them. The whole idea is graphically illustrated in\nthe following Ojibwa tradition or myth. Gitchi Gauzini was a chief who\nlived on the shores of Lake Superior, and once, after a few days\u2019\nillness, he seemed to die. He had been a skilful hunter, and had desired\nthat a fine gun which he possessed should be buried with him when he\ndied. But some of his friends not thinking him really dead, his body was\nnot buried; his widow watched him for four days, he came back to life,\nand told his story. After death, he said, his ghost travelled on the\nbroad road of the dead toward the happy land, passing over great plains\nof luxuriant herbage, seeing beautiful groves, and hearing the songs of\ninnumerable birds, till at last, from the summit of a hill, he caught\nsight of the distant city of the dead, far across an intermediate space,\npartly veiled in mist, and spangled with glittering lakes and streams.\nHe came in view of herds of stately deer and moose, and other game,\nwhich with little fear walked near his path. But he had no gun, and\nremembering how he had requested his friends to put his gun in his\ngrave, he turned back to go and fetch it. Then he met face to face the\ntrain of men, women, and children who were travelling toward the city of\nthe dead. They were heavily laden with guns, pipes, kettles, meats, and\nother articles; women were carrying basket-work and painted paddles, and\nlittle boys had their ornamented clubs and their bows and arrows, the\npresents of their friends. Refusing a gun which an overburdened\ntraveller offered him, the ghost of Gitchi Gauzini travelled back in\nquest of his own, and at last reached the place where he had died. There\nhe could see only a great fire before and around him, and finding the\nflames barring his passage on every side, he made a desperate leap\nthrough, and awoke from his trance. Having concluded his story, he gave\nhis auditors this counsel, that they should no longer deposit so many\nburdensome things with the dead, delaying them on their journey to the\nplace of repose, so that almost everyone he met complained bitterly. It\nwould be wiser, he said, only to put such things in the grave as the\ndeceased was particularly attached to, or made a formal request to have\ndeposited with him.[788]\n\nWith purpose no less distinct, when a dead Fijian chief is laid out\noiled and painted and dressed as in life, a heavy club is placed ready\nnear his right hand, which holds one or more of the much-prized carved\n\u2018whale\u2019s tooth\u2019 ornaments. The club is to serve for defence against the\nadversaries who await his soul on the road to Mbulu, seeking to slay and\neat him. We hear of a Fijian taking a club from a companion\u2019s grave, and\nremarking in explanation to a missionary who stood by, \u2018The ghost of the\nclub has gone with him.\u2019 The purpose of the whale\u2019s tooth is this; on\nthe road to the land of the dead, near the solitary hill of\nTakiveleyawa, there stands a ghostly pandanus-tree, and the spirit of\nthe dead man is to throw the spirit of the whale\u2019s tooth at this tree,\nhaving struck which he is to ascend the hill and await the coming of the\nspirits of his strangled wives.[789] The funeral rites of the Karens\ncomplete the present group. They kept up what seems a clear survival\nfrom actual human and animal sacrifice, fastening up near an important\nperson\u2019s grave a slave and a pony; these invariably released themselves,\nand the slave became henceforth a free man. Moreover, the practice of\nplacing food, implements and utensils, and valuables of gold and silver,\nnear the remains of the deceased, was general among them.[790]\n\nNow the sacrifice of property for the dead is one of the great religious\nrites of the world; are we then justified in asserting that all men who\nabandon or destroy property as a funeral ceremony believe the articles\nto have spirits, which spirits are transmitted to the deceased? Not so;\nit is notorious that there are people who recognize no such theory but\nwho nevertheless deposit offerings with the dead. Affectionate fancy or\nsymbolism, a horror of the association of death leading the survivors to\nget rid of anything that even suggests the dreadful thought, a desire to\nabandon the dead man\u2019s property, an idea that the hovering ghost may\ntake pleasure in or make use of the gifts left for him, all these are or\nmay be efficient motives.[791] Yet, having made full allowance for all\nthis, we shall find good reason to judge that many other peoples, though\nthey may never have stated the theory of object-souls in the same\nexplicit way as the Algonquins, Fijians, and Karens, have recognized it\nwith more or less distinctness. It has given me the more confidence in\nthis opinion to find it held, under proper reservation, by Mr. W. R.\nAlger, an American investigator, who in a treatise entitled \u2018A Critical\nHistory of the Doctrine of a Future Life\u2019 has discussed the ethnography\nof his subject with remarkable learning and sagacity. \u2018The barbarian\nbrain,\u2019 he writes, \u2018seems to have been generally impregnated with the\nfeeling that everything else has a ghost as well as man.... The custom\nof burning or burying things with the dead probably arose, in some cases\nat least, from the supposition that every object, has its _manes_.\u2019[792]\nIt will be desirable briefly to examine further the subject of funeral\nofferings, as bearing on this interesting question of early psychology.\n\nA wide survey of funeral sacrifices over the world will plainly show one\nof their most usual motives to be a more or less defined notion of\nbenefiting the deceased, whether out of kindness to him or from fear of\nhis displeasure. How such an intention may have taken this practical\nshape we can perhaps vaguely guess, familiar as we are with a state of\nmind out of which funeral sacrifices could naturally have sprung. The\nman is dead, but it is still possible to fancy him alive, to take his\ncold hand, to speak to him, to place his chair at the table, to bury\nsuggestive mementoes in his coffin, to throw flowers into his grave, to\nhang wreaths of everlastings on his tomb. The Cid may be set on Babieca\nwith his sword Tizona in his hand, and carried out to do battle as of\nold against the unbeliever; the dead king\u2019s meal may be carried in to\nhim in state, although the chamberlain must announce that the king does\nnot dine to-day. Such childlike ignoring of death, such childlike\nmake-believe that the dead can still do as heretofore, may well have led\nthe savage to bury with his kinsman the weapons, clothes, and ornaments\nthat he used in life, to try to feed the corpse, to put a cigar in the\nmouth of the skull before its final burial, to lay playthings in the\ninfant\u2019s grave. But one thought beyond would carry this dim blind fancy\ninto the range of logical reasoning. Granted that the man is dead and\nhis soul gone out of him, then the way to provide that departed soul\nwith food or clothes or weapons is to bury or burn them with the body,\nfor whatever happens to the man may be taken to happen to the objects\nthat lie beside him and share his fate, while the precise way in which\nthe transmission takes place may be left undecided. It is possible that\nthe funeral sacrifice customary among mankind may have rested at first,\nand may to some extent still rest, on vague thoughts and imaginations\nlike these, as yet fitted into no more definite and elaborate\nphilosophic theory.\n\nThere are, however, two great groups of cases of funeral sacrifice,\nwhich so logically lead up to or involve the notion of souls or spirits\nof objects, that the sacrificer himself could hardly answer otherwise a\npoint-blank question as to their meaning. The first group is that in\nwhich those who sacrifice men and beasts with the intention of conveying\ntheir souls to the other world, also sacrifice lifeless things\nindiscriminately with them. The second group is that in which the\nphantoms of the objects sacrificed are traced distinctly into the\npossession of the human phantom.\n\nThe Caribs, holding that after decease man\u2019s soul found its way to the\nland of the dead, sacrificed slaves on a chief\u2019s grave to serve him in\nthe new life, and for the same purpose buried dogs with him, and also\nweapons.[793] The Guinea negroes, at the funeral of a great man, killed\nseveral wives and slaves to serve him in the other world, and put fine\nclothes, gold fetishes, coral, beads, and other valuables, into the\ncoffin, to be used there too.[794] When the New Zealand chief had slaves\nkilled at his death for his service, and the mourning family gave his\nchief widow a rope to hang herself with in the woods and so rejoin her\nhusband,[795] it is not easy to discern here a motive different from\nthat which induced them at the same time to provide the dead man also\nwith his weapons. Nor can an intellectual line well be drawn between the\nintentions with which the Tunguz has buried with him his horse, his bow\nand arrows, his smoking apparatus and kettle. In the typical description\nwhich Herodotus gives of the funeral of the ancient Scythian chiefs, the\nmiscellaneous contents of the burial-mound, the strangled wife and\nhousehold servants, the horses, the choice articles of property, the\ngolden vessels, fairly represent the indiscriminate purpose which\nactuated the barbaric sacrifice of creatures and things.[796] So in old\nEurope, the warrior with his sword and spear, the horse with his saddle,\nthe hunter\u2019s hound and hawk and his bow and arrow, the wife with her gay\nclothes and jewels, lie together in the burial-mound. Their common\npurpose has become one of the most undisputed inferences of Arch\u00e6ology.\n\nAs for what becomes of the objects sacrificed for the dead there are on\nrecord the most distinct statements taken from the sacrificers\nthemselves. Although the objects rot in the grave or are consumed on the\npile, they nevertheless come in some way into the possession of the\ndisembodied souls they are intended for. Not the material things\nthemselves, but phantasmal shapes corresponding to them, are carried by\nthe souls of the dead on their far journey beyond the grave, or are used\nin the world of spirits; while sometimes the phantoms of the dead appear\nto the living, bearing property which they have received by sacrifice,\nor demanding something that has been withheld. The Australian will take\nhis weapons with him to his paradise.[797] A Tasmanian, asked the reason\nof a spear being deposited in a native\u2019s grave, replied \u2018To fight with\nwhen he is asleep.\u2019[798] Many Greenlanders thought that the kayak and\narrows and tools laid by a man\u2019s grave, the knife and sewing implements\nlaid by a woman\u2019s, would be used in the next world.[799] The instruments\nburied with the Sioux are for him to make a living with hereafter; the\npaints provided for the dead Iroquois were to enable him to appear\ndecently in the other world.[800] The Aztec\u2019s water-bottle was to serve\nhim on the journey to Mictlan, the land of the dead; the bonfire of\ngarments and baskets and spoils of war was intended to send them with\nhim, and somehow to protect him against the bitter wind; the offerings\nto the warrior\u2019s manes on earth would reach him on the heavenly\nplains.[801] Among the old Peruvians, a dead prince\u2019s wives would hang\nthemselves in order to continue in his service, and many of his\nattendants would be buried in his fields or places of favourite resort,\nin order that his soul, passing through those places, might take their\nsouls along with him for future service. In perfect consistency with\nthese strong animistic notions, the Peruvians declared that their reason\nfor sacrifice of property to the dead was that they \u2018have seen, or\nthought they saw, those who have long been dead walking, adorned with\nthe things that were buried with them, and accompanied by their wives\nwho had been buried alive.\u2019[802]\n\nAs definite an implication of the spirit or phantom of an object appears\nin a recent account from Madagascar, where things are buried to become\nin some way useful to the dead. When King Radama died, it was reported\nand firmly believed that his ghost was seen one night in the garden of\nhis country seat, dressed in one of the uniforms which had been buried\nwith him, and riding one of the best horses killed opposite his\ntomb.[803] Turanian tribes of North Asia avow that the motive of their\nfuneral offerings of horses and sledges, clothes and axes and kettles,\nflint and steel and tinder, meat and butter, is to provide the dead for\nhis journey to the land of souls, and for his life there.[804] Among the\nEsths of Northern Europe, the dead starts properly equipped on his\nghostly journey with needle and thread, hairbrush and soap, bread and\nbrandy and coin; a toy, if it is a child. And so full a consciousness of\npractical meaning survived till lately, that now and then a soul would\ncome back at night to reproach its relations with not having provided\nproperly for it, but left it in distress.[805] To turn from these now\nEuropeanized Tatars to a rude race of the Eastern Archipelago, among the\nOrang Binua of Sambawa there prevails this curious law of inheritance;\nnot only does each surviving relative, father, mother, son, brother, and\nso forth, take his or her proper share, but the deceased inherits one\nshare from himself, which is devoted to his use by eating the animals at\nthe funeral feast, burning everything else that will burn, and burying\nthe remainder.[806] In Cochin China, the common people object to\ncelebrating their feast of the dead on the same day with the upper\nclasses, for this excellent reason, that the aristocratic souls might\nmake the servant souls carry home their presents for them. These people\nemploy all the resources of their civilization to perform with the more\nlavish extravagance the savage funeral sacrifices. Here are details from\nan account published in 1849 of the funeral of a late king of Cochin\nChina. \u2018When the corpse of Thien Tri was deposited in the coffin, there\nwere also deposited in it many things for the use of the deceased in the\nother world, such as his crown, turbans, clothes of all descriptions,\ngold, silver, and other precious articles, rice and other provisions.\u2019\nMeals were set out near the coffin, and there was a framed piece of\ndamask with woollen characters, the abode of one of the souls of the\ndefunct. In the tomb, an enclosed edifice of stone, the childless wives\nof the deceased were to be perpetually shut up to guard the sepulchre,\n\u2018and prepare daily the food and other things of which they think the\ndeceased has need in the other life.\u2019 At the time of the deposit of the\ncoffin in a cavern behind the tomb building, there were burnt there\ngreat piles of boats, stages, and everything used in the funeral, \u2018and\nmoreover of all the objects which had been in use by the king during his\nlifetime, of chessmen, musical instruments, fans, boxes, parasols, mats,\nfillets, carriages, &c., &c., and likewise a horse and an elephant of\nwood and pasteboard.\u2019 \u2018Some months after the funeral, at two different\ntimes, there were constructed in a forest near a pagoda two magnificent\npalaces of wood with rich furnishings, in all things similar to the\npalace which the defunct monarch had inhabited. Each palace was composed\nof twenty rooms, and the most scrupulous attention was given in order\nthat nothing might be awanting necessary for a palace, and these palaces\nwere burned with great pomp, and it is thus that immense riches have\nbeen given to the flames from the foolish belief that it would serve the\ndead in the other world.\u2019[807]\n\nThough the custom is found among the Beduins of arraying the dead with\nturban, girdle, and sword, yet funeral offerings for the service of\nthe dead are by no means conspicuous among Semitic nations. The\nmention of the rite by Ezekiel, while showing a full sense of its\nmeaning, characterizes it as not Israelite, but Gentile: \u2018The mighty\nfallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to Hades with weapons\nof war, and they have laid their swords under their heads.\u2019[808] Among\nthe Aryan nations, on the contrary, such funeral offerings are known\nto have prevailed widely and of old, while for picturesqueness of rite\nand definiteness of purpose they can scarcely be surpassed even among\nsavages. Why the Brahman\u2019s sacrificial instruments are to be burnt\nwith him on the funeral pile, appears from this line of the Veda\nrecited at the ceremony: \u2018Yad\u00e2 gach\u00e2hatyasun\u00eetimet\u00e2math\u00e2 dev\u00e2n\u00e2m\nvasan\u00eerbhav\u00e2ti,\u2019\u2014\u2018When he cometh unto that life, faithfully will he do\nthe service of the gods.\u2019[809] Lucian is sarcastic, but scarcely\nunfair, in his comments on the Greek funeral rites, speaking of those\nwho slew horses and slave-girls and cupbearers, and burned or buried\nclothes and ornaments, as for use and service in the world below; of\nthe meat and drink offerings on the tombs which serve to feed the\nbodiless shades in Hades; of the splendid garments and the garlands of\nthe dead, that they might not suffer cold upon the road, nor be seen\nnaked by Kerberos. For Kerberos was intended the honey-cake deposited\nwith the dead; and the obolus placed in the mouth was the toll for\nCharon, save at Hermione in Argolis, where men thought there was a\nshort descent to Hades, and therefore provided the dead with no coin\nfor the grim ferryman. How such ideas could be realized, may be seen\nin the story of Eukrates, whose dead wife appeared to him to demand\none of her golden sandals, which had been dropped underneath the\nchest, and so not burnt for her with the rest of her wardrobe; or in\nthe story of Periander, whose dead wife Melissa refused to give him an\noracular response, for she was shivering and naked, because the\ngarments buried with her had not been burnt, and so were of no use,\nwherefore Periander plundered the Corinthian women of their best\nclothes, which he burned in a great trench with prayer, and now\nobtained his answer.[810] The ancient Gauls were led, by their belief\nin another life, to burn and bury with the dead things suited to the\nliving; nor is the record improbable that they transferred to the\nworld below the repayment of loans, for even in modern centuries the\nJapanese would borrow money in this life, to be repaid with heavy\ninterest in the next.[811] The souls of the Norse dead took with them\nfrom their earthly home servants and horses, boats and ferry-money,\nclothes and weapons. Thus, in death as in life, they journeyed,\nfollowing the long dark \u2018hell-way\u2019 (helvegr). The \u2018hell-shoon\u2019\n(helsk\u00f3) were bound upon the dead man\u2019s feet for the toilsome journey;\nand when King Harald was slain in the battle of Bravalla, they drove\nhis war-chariot, with the corpse upon it into the great burial-mound,\nand there they killed the horse, and King Hring gave his own saddle\nbeside, that the fallen chief might ride or drive to Walhalla, as it\npleased him.[812] Lastly, in the Lithuanian and old Prussian district,\nwhere Aryan heathendom held its place in Europe so firmly and so late,\naccounts of funeral sacrifice of men, and beasts, and things, date on\neven beyond the middle ages. Even as they thought that men would live\nagain in the resurrection rich or poor, noble or peasant, as on earth,\nso \u2018they believed that the things burned would rise again with them,\nand serve them as before.\u2019 Among these people lived the Kriwe\nKriweito, the great priest, whose house was on the high steep mountain\nAnafielas. All the Souls of their dead must clamber up this mountain,\nwherefore they burned with them claws of bears and lynxes for their\nhelp. All the souls must pass through the Kriwe\u2019s house, and he could\ndescribe to the surviving relatives of each the clothes, and horse,\nand weapons he had seen him come with, and even show, for greater\ncertainty, some mark made with lance or other instrument by the\npassing soul.[813] Such examples of funeral rites show a common\nceremony, and to a great degree a common purpose, obtaining from\nsavagery through barbarism, and even into the higher civilization. Now\ncould we have required from all these races a distinct answer to the\nquestion, whether they believed in spirits of all things, from men and\nbeasts down to spears and cloaks, sticks and stones, it is likely that\nwe might have often received the same acknowledgment of fully\ndeveloped animism which stands on record in North America, Polynesia,\nand Burma. Failing such direct testimony, it is at least justifiable\nto say that the lower culture, by practically dealing with\nobject-souls, goes far towards acknowledging their existence.\n\nBefore quitting the discussion of funeral offerings for transmission to\nthe dead, the custom must be traced to its final decay. It is apt not to\ndie out suddenly, but to leave surviving remnants, more or less dwindled\nin form and changed in meaning. The Kanowits of Borneo talk of setting a\nman\u2019s property adrift for use in the next world, and even go so far as\nto lay out his valuables by the bier, but in fact they only commit to\nthe frail canoe a few old things not worth plundering.[814] So in North\nAmerica, the funeral sacrifice of the Winnebagos has come down to\nburying a pipe and tobacco with the dead, and sometimes a club in a\nwarrior\u2019s grave, while the goods brought and hung up at the burial-place\nare no longer left there, but the survivors gamble for them.[815] The\nSantals of Bengal put two vessels, one for rice and the other for water,\non the dead man\u2019s couch, with a few rupees, to enable him to appease the\ndemons on the threshold of the shadowy world, but when the funeral pile\nis ready these things are removed.[816] The fanciful art of replacing\ncostly offerings by worthless imitations is at this day worked out into\nthe quaintest devices in China. As the men and horses dispatched by fire\nfor the service of the dead are but paper figures, so offerings of\nclothes and money may be represented likewise. The imitations of Spanish\npillar-dollars in pasteboard covered with tinfoil, the sheets of\ntinfoil-paper which stand for silver money, and if coloured yellow for\ngold, are consumed in such quantities that the sham becomes a serious\nreality, for the manufacture of mock-money is the trade of thousands of\nwomen and children in a Chinese city. In a similar way trunks full of\nproperty are forwarded in the care of the newly deceased, to friends who\nare gone before. Pretty paper houses, \u2018replete with every luxury,\u2019 as\nour auctioneers say, are burnt for the dead Chinaman to live in\nhereafter, and the paper keys are burnt also, that he may unfasten the\npaper locks of the paper chests that hold the ingots of gold-paper and\nsilver-paper, which are to be realized as current gold and silver in the\nother world, an idea which, however, does not prevent the careful\nsurvivors from collecting the ashes to re-extract the tin from them in\nthis.[817] Again, when the modern Hindu offers to his dead parent\nfuneral cakes with flowers and betel, he presents a woollen yam which he\nlays across the cake, and naming the deceased says, \u2018May this apparel,\nmade of woollen yam, be acceptable to thee.\u2019[818] Such facts as these\nsuggest a symbolic meaning in the practically useless offerings which\nSir John Lubbock groups together\u2014the little models of kayaks and spears\nin Esquimaux graves, the models of objects in Egyptian tombs, and the\nflimsy unserviceable jewelry buried with the Etruscan dead.[819]\n\nJust as people in Borneo, after they had become Mohammedans, still kept\nup the rite of burying provisions for the dead man\u2019s journey, as a mark\nof respect,[820] so the rite of interring funeral offerings survived in\nChristian Europe. The ancient Greek burial of the dead with the obolus\nin his mouth for Charon\u2019s toll is represented in the modern Greek world,\nwhere Charon and the funeral coin are both familiar. As the old\nPrussians furnished the dead with spending-money to buy refreshment on\nhis weary journey, so to this day German peasants bury a corpse with\nmoney in his mouth or hand, a fourpenny-piece or so. Similar little\nfuneral offerings of coin are recorded in the folklore books elsewhere\nin Europe.[821] Christian funeral offerings of this kind are mostly\ntrifling in value, and doubtful as to the meaning with which they were\nkept up. The early Christians retained the heathen custom of placing in\nthe tomb such things as articles of the toilette and children\u2019s\nplaythings; modern Greeks would place oars on a shipman\u2019s grave, and\nother such tokens for other crafts; the beautiful classic rite of\nscattering flowers over the dead still holds its place in Europe.[822]\nWhatever may have been the thoughts which first prompted these kindly\nceremonies, they were thoughts belonging to far pr\u00e6-Christian ages. The\nchange of sacrifice from its early significance is shown among the\nHindus, who have turned it to account for purposes of priestcraft: he\nwho gives water or shoes to a Brahman will find water to refresh him,\nand shoes to wear, on the journey to the next world, while the gift of a\npresent house will secure him a future palace.[823] In interesting\ncorrespondence with this, is a transition from pagan to Christian\nfolklore in our own land. The Lyke-Wake Dirge, the not yet forgotten\nfuneral chant of the North Country, tells, like some savage or barbaric\nlegend, of the passage over the Bridge of Death and the dreadful journey\nto the other world. But though the ghostly traveller\u2019s feet are still\nshod with the old Norseman\u2019s hell-shoon, he gains them no longer by\nfuneral offering, but by his own charity in life:\u2014\n\n              \u2018This a nighte, this a nighte\n                Every night and alle;\n              Fire and fleet and candle-light,\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\n\n              When thou from hence away are paste\n                Every night and alle;\n              To Whinny-moor thou comes at laste,\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\n\n              If ever thou gave either hosen or shoon,\n                Every night and alle;\n              Sit thee down and put them on,\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\n\n              But if hosen nor shoon thou never gave neean,\n                Every night and alle;\n              The Whinnes shall prick thee to the bare beean,\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\n\n              From Whinny-moore when thou may passe,\n                Every night and alle;\n              To Brig o\u2019 Dread thou comes at laste,\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\n\n              From Brig o\u2019 Dread when thou are paste,\n                Every night and alle;\n              To Purgatory Fire thou comes at laste,\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\n\n              If ever thou gave either milke or drink,\n                Every night and alle;\n              The fire shall never make thee shrinke,\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\n\n              But if milk nor drink thou never gave neean,\n                Every night and alle;\n              The fire shall burn thee to the bare beean\n                And Christe receive thy saule.\u2019[824]\n\nWhat reader, unacquainted with the old doctrine of offerings for the\ndead, could realize the meaning of its remnants thus lingering in\npeasants\u2019 minds? The survivals from ancient funeral ceremony may here\nagain serve as warnings against attempting to explain relics of\nintellectual antiquity by viewing them from the changed level of modern\nopinion.\n\nHaving thus surveyed at large the theory of spirits or souls of objects,\nit remains to point out what, to general students, may seem the most\nimportant consideration belonging to it, namely, its close relation to\none of the most influential doctrines of civilized philosophy. The\nsavage thinker, though occupying himself so much with the phenomena of\nlife, sleep, disease, and death, seems to have taken for granted, as a\nmatter of course, the ordinary operations of his own mind. It hardly\noccurred to him to think about the machinery of thinking. Metaphysics is\na study which first assumes clear shape at a comparatively high level of\nintellectual culture. The metaphysical philosophy of thought taught in\nour modern European lecture-rooms is historically traced back to the\nspeculative psychology of classic Greece. Now one doctrine which there\ncomes into view is especially associated with the name of Democritus,\nthe philosopher of Abdera, in the fifth century B.C. When Democritus\npropounded the great problem of metaphysics, \u2018How do we perceive\nexternal things?\u2019\u2014thus making, as Lewes says, an era in the history of\nphilosophy,\u2014he put forth, in answer to the question, a theory of\nthought. He explained the fact of perception by declaring that things\nare always throwing off images \u03b5\u1f34\u03b4\u03c9\u03bb\u03b1 of themselves, which images,\nassimilating to themselves the surrounding air, enter a recipient soul,\nand are thus perceived. Now, supposing Democritus to have been really\nthe originator of this famed theory of ideas, how far is he to be\nconsidered its inventor? Writers on the history of philosophy are\naccustomed to treat the doctrine as actually made by the philosophical\nschool which taught it. Yet the evidence here brought forward shows it\nto be really the savage doctrine of object-souls, turned to a new\npurpose as a method of explaining the phenomena of thought. Nor is the\ncorrespondence a mere coincidence, for at this point of junction between\nclassic religion and classic philosophy the traces of historical\ncontinuity may be still discerned. To say that Democritus was an ancient\nGreek is to say that from his childhood he had looked on at the funeral\nceremonies of his country, beholding the funeral sacrifices of garments\nand jewels and money and food and drink, rites which his mother and his\nnurse could tell him were performed in order that the phantasmal images\nof these objects might pass into the possession of forms shadowy like\nthemselves, the souls of dead men. Thus Democritus, seeking a solution\nof his great problem of the nature of thought, found it by simply\ndecanting into his metaphysics a surviving doctrine of primitive savage\nanimism. This thought of the phantoms or souls of things, if simply\nmodified to form a philosophical theory of perception, would then and\nthere become his doctrine of Ideas. Nor does even this fully represent\nthe closeness of union which connects the savage doctrine of flitting\nobject-souls with the Epicurean philosophy. Lucretius actually makes the\ntheory of film-like images of things (simulacra, membran\u00e6) account both\nfor the apparitions which come to men in dreams, and the images which\nimpress their minds in thinking. So unbroken is the continuity of\nphilosophic speculation from savage to cultured thought. Such are the\ndebts which civilized philosophy owes to primitive animism.\n\nThe doctrine of ideas, thus developed in the classic world, has, indeed,\nby no means held its course thenceforth unchanged through metaphysics,\nbut has undergone transition somewhat like that of the doctrine of the\nsoul itself. Ideas, fined down to the abstract forms or species of\nmaterial objects, and applied to other than visible qualities, have at\nlast come merely to denote subjects of thought. Yet to this day the old\ntheory has not utterly died out, and the retention of the significant\nterm \u2018idea\u2019 (\u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03b1, visible form) is accompanied by a similar retention\nof original meaning. It is still one of the tasks of the metaphysician\nto display and refute the old notion of ideas as being real images, and\nto replace it by more abstract conceptions. It is a striking instance\nthat Dugald Stewart can cite from the works of Sir Isaac Newton the\nfollowing distinct recognition of \u2018sensible species:\u2019 \u2018Is not the\nsensorium of animals, the place where the sentient substance is present;\nand to which the sensible species of things are brought, through the\nnerves and brain, that there they may be perceived by the mind present\nin that place?\u2019 Again, Dr. Reid states the original theory of ideas,\nwhile declaring that he conceives it \u2018to have no solid foundation,\nthough it has been adopted very generally by philosophers.... This\nnotion of our perceiving external objects, not immediately, but in\ncertain images or species of them conveyed by the senses, seems to be\nthe most ancient philosophical hypothesis we have on the subject of\nperception, and to have, with small variations, retained its authority\nto this day.\u2019 Granted that Dr. Reid exaggerated the extent to which\nmetaphysicians have kept up the notion of ideas as real images of\nthings, few will deny that it does linger much in modern minds, and that\npeople who talk of ideas do often, in some hazy metaphorical way, think\nof sensible images.[825] One of the shrewdest things ever said about\neither ideas or ghosts was Bishop Berkeley\u2019s retort upon Halley, who\nbantered him about his idealism. The bishop claimed the mathematician as\nan idealist also, his \u2018ultimate ratios\u2019 being ghosts of departed\nquantities, appearing when the terms that produced them vanished.\n\nIt remains to sum up in few words the doctrine of souls, in the various\nphases it has assumed from first to last among mankind. In the attempt\nto trace its main course through the successive grades of man\u2019s\nintellectual history, the evidence seems to accord best with a theory of\nits development, somewhat to the following effect. At the lowest levels\nof culture of which we have clear knowledge, the notion of a ghost-soul\nanimating man while in the body, and appearing in dream and vision out\nof the body, is found deeply ingrained. There is no reason to think that\nthis belief was learnt by savage tribes from contact with higher races,\nnor that it is a relic of higher culture from which the savage tribes\nhave degenerated; for what is here treated as the primitive animistic\ndoctrine is thoroughly at home among savages, who appear to hold it on\nthe very evidence of their senses, interpreted on the biological\nprinciple which seems to them most reasonable. We may now and then hear\nthe savage doctrines and practices concerning souls claimed as relics of\na high religious culture pervading the prim\u00e6val race of man. They are\nsaid to be traces of remote ancestral religion, kept up in scanty and\nperverted memory by tribes degraded from a nobler state. It is easy to\nsee that such an explanation of some few facts, sundered from their\nconnexion with the general array, may seem plausible to certain minds.\nBut a large view of the subject can hardly leave such argument in\npossession. The animism of savages stands for and by itself; it explains\nits own origin. The animism of civilized men, while more appropriate to\nadvanced knowledge, is in great measure only explicable as a developed\nproduct of the older and ruder system. It is the doctrines and rites of\nthe lower races which are, according to their philosophy, results of\npoint-blank natural evidence and acts of straightforward practical\npurpose. It is the doctrines and rites of the higher races which show\nsurvival of the old in the midst of the new, modification of the old to\nbring it into conformity with the new, abandonment of the old because it\nis no longer compatible with the new. Let us see at a glance in what\ngeneral relation the doctrine of souls among savage tribes stands to the\ndoctrine of souls among barbaric and cultured nations. Among races\nwithin the limits of savagery, the general doctrine of souls is found\nworked out with remarkable breadth and consistency. The souls of animals\nare recognized by a natural extension from the theory of human souls;\nthe souls of trees and plants follow in some vague partial way; and the\nsouls of inanimate objects expand the general category to its extremest\nboundary. Thenceforth, as we explore human thought onward from savage\ninto barbarian and civilized life, we find a state of theory more\nconformed to positive science, but in itself less complete and\nconsistent. Far on into civilization, men still act as though in some\nhalf-meant way they believed in souls or ghosts of objects, while\nnevertheless their knowledge of physical science is beyond so crude a\nphilosophy. As to the doctrine of souls of plants, fragmentary evidence\nof the history of its breaking down in Asia has reached us. In our own\nday and country, the notion of souls of beasts is to be seen dying out.\nAnimism, indeed, seems to be drawing in its outposts, and concentrating\nitself on its first and main position, the doctrine of the human soul.\nThis doctrine has undergone extreme modification in the course of\nculture. It has outlived the almost total loss of one great argument\nattached to it,\u2014the objective reality of apparitional souls or ghosts\nseen in dreams and visions. The soul has given up its ethereal\nsubstance, and become an immaterial entity, \u2018the shadow of a shade.\u2019 Its\ntheory is becoming separated from the investigations of biology and\nmental science, which now discuss the phenomena of life and thought, the\nsenses and the intellect, the emotions and the will, on a ground-work of\npure experience. There has arisen an intellectual product whose very\nexistence is of the deepest significance, a \u2018psychology\u2019 which has no\nlonger anything to do with \u2018soul.\u2019 The soul\u2019s place in modern thought is\nin the metaphysics of religion, and its especial office there is that of\nfurnishing an intellectual side to the religious doctrine of the future\nlife. Such are the alterations which have differenced the fundamental\nanimistic belief in its course through successive periods of the world\u2019s\nculture. Yet it is evident that, notwithstanding all this profound\nchange, the conception of the human soul is, as to its most essential\nnature, continuous from the philosophy of the savage thinker to that of\nthe modern professor of theology. Its definition has remained from the\nfirst that of an animating, separable, surviving entity, the vehicle of\nindividual personal existence. The theory of the soul is one principal\npart of a system of religious philosophy which unites, in an unbroken\nline of mental connexion, the savage fetish-worshipper and the civilized\nChristian. The divisions which have separated the great religions of the\nworld into intolerant and hostile sects are for the most part\nsuperficial in comparison with the deepest of all religious schisms,\nthat which divides Animism from Materialism.\n\nFootnote 607:\n\n  J. D. Lang, \u2018Queensland,\u2019 pp. 340, 374, 380, 388, 444 (Buddai appears,\n  p. 379, as causing a deluge; he is probably identical with Budyah).\n\nFootnote 608:\n\n  Moffat, \u2018South Africa,\u2019 p. 261.\n\nFootnote 609:\n\n  Azara, \u2018Voy. dans l\u2019Am\u00e9rique M\u00e9ridionale,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 3, 14, 25, 51,\n  60, 91, 119, &c.; D\u2019Orbigny, \u2018L\u2019Homme Am\u00e9ricain,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 318.\n\nFootnote 610:\n\n  Muir, \u2018Sanskrit Texts,\u2019 part ii. p. 435; Euseb. \u2018Hist. Eccl.\u2019 iv. 15;\n  Bingham, book i. ch. ii.; Vanini, \u2018De Admirandis Naturae Arcanis,\u2019\n  dial. 37; Lecky, \u2018Hist. of Rationalism,\u2019 vol. i. p. 126; Encyclop.\n  Brit. (5th ed.) s.v. \u2018Superstition.\u2019\n\nFootnote 611:\n\n  J. de Verrazano in Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 300.\n\nFootnote 612:\n\n  See W. Ellis, \u2018Hist. of Madagascar,\u2019 vol. i. p. 429; Flacourt, \u2018Hist.\n  de Madagascar,\u2019 p. 59.\n\nFootnote 613:\n\n  Dampier, \u2018Voyages,\u2019 vol. ii. part ii. p. 76.\n\nFootnote 614:\n\n  Roe in Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 2.\n\nFootnote 615:\n\n  Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 p. 564: see also \u2018Origin of\n  Civilization,\u2019 p. 138.\n\nFootnote 616:\n\n  Sproat, \u2018Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,\u2019 p. 205.\n\nFootnote 617:\n\n  Mouat, \u2018Andaman Islanders,\u2019 pp. 2, 279, 303. Since the above was\n  written, the remarkable Andaman religion has been described by Mr. E.\n  H. Man, in \u2018Journ. Anthrop. Inst.\u2019 vol. xii. (1883) p. 156. (Note to\n  3rd ed.)\n\nFootnote 618:\n\n  Baker, \u2018Races of the Nile Basin,\u2019 in Tr. Eth. Soc. vol. v. p. 231;\n  \u2018The Albert Nyanza,\u2019 vol. i. p. 246. See Kaufmann, \u2018Schilderungen aus\n  Central-afrika,\u2019 p. 123; Brun-Rollet, \u2018Le Nil Blanc et le Soudan,\u2019 pp.\n  100, 222, also pp. 164, 200, 234; G. Lejean in \u2018Rev. des Deux M.\u2019\n  April 1, 1862, p. 760; Waitz, \u2018Anthropologie,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 72-5;\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 208. Other recorded cases of denial of\n  religion of savage tribes on narrow definition or inadequate evidence\n  may be found in Meiners, \u2018Gesch. der Rel.\u2019 vol. i. pp. 11-15\n  (Australians and Californians); Waitz, \u2018Anthropologie,\u2019 vol. i. p. 323\n  (Aru Islanders, &c.); Farrar in \u2018Anthrop. Rev.\u2019 Aug. 1864, p. ccxvii,\n  (Kafirs, &c.); Martius, \u2018Ethnog. Amer.\u2019 vol. i. p. 583 (Manaos); J. G.\n  Palfrey, \u2018Hist. of New England,\u2019 vol. i. p. 46 (New England tribes).\n\nFootnote 619:\n\n  The term has been especially used to denote the doctrine of Stahl, the\n  promulgator also of the phlogiston-theory. The Animism of Stahl is a\n  revival and development in modern scientific shape of the classic\n  theory identifying vital principle and soul. See his \u2018Theoria Medica\n  Vera,\u2019 Halle, 1737; and the critical dissertation on his views,\n  Lemoine, \u2018Le Vitalisme et l\u2019Animisme de Stahl,\u2019 Paris, 1864.\n\nFootnote 620:\n\n  Bonwick, \u2018Tasmanians,\u2019 p. 182.\n\nFootnote 621:\n\n  Tanner\u2019s \u2018Narr.\u2019 p. 291, Cree atch\u00e2k==soul.\n\nFootnote 622:\n\n  Brasseur, \u2018Langue Quich\u00e9e,\u2019 s.v.\n\nFootnote 623:\n\n  Martius, \u2018Ethnog. Amer.\u2019 vol. i. p. 705; vol. ii. p. 310.\n\nFootnote 624:\n\n  Dobrizhoffer, \u2018Abipones,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 194.\n\nFootnote 625:\n\n  D\u00f6hne, \u2018Zulu Dic.\u2019 s.v. \u2018tunzi;\u2019 Callaway, \u2018Rel. of Amazulu,\u2019 pp. 91,\n  126; \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. p. 342.\n\nFootnote 626:\n\n   Casalis, \u2018Basutos,\u2019 p. 245; Arbousset and Daumas, \u2018Voyage,\u2019 p. 12.\n\nFootnote 627:\n\n  Goldie, \u2018Efik Dictionary,\u2019 s.v.; see K\u00f6lle, \u2018Afr. Native Lit.\u2019 p. 324\n  (Kanuri). Also \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. v. p. 713 (Australian).\n\nFootnote 628:\n\n  Dante, \u2018Div. Comm. Purgatorio,\u2019 canto iii. Compare Grohmann,\n  \u2018Aberglauben aus B\u00f6hmen,\u2019 p. 221. See _ante_, p. 85.\n\nFootnote 629:\n\n  Rochefort, pp. 429, 516; J. G. M\u00fcller, p. 207.\n\nFootnote 630:\n\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 135; S. S. Farmer, \u2018Tonga,\u2019 &c. p.\n  131.\n\nFootnote 631:\n\n  Casalis, l.c. See also Mariner, ibid.\n\nFootnote 632:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 pp. 15-23.\n\nFootnote 633:\n\n  J. H. Bernau, \u2018Brit. Guiana,\u2019 p. 134.\n\nFootnote 634:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 1028, 1133. Anglo-Saxon _man-lica_.\n\nFootnote 635:\n\n  Lieber, \u2018Laura Bridgman,\u2019 in Smithsonian Contrib. vol. ii. p. 8.\n\nFootnote 636:\n\n  G. F. Moore, \u2018Vocab. of W. Australia,\u2019 p. 103.\n\nFootnote 637:\n\n  Brinton, p. 50, see p. 235; Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 15.\n\nFootnote 638:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 257.\n\nFootnote 639:\n\n  Crawfurd, \u2018Malay Gr. and Dic.\u2019 s.v.; Marsden, \u2018Sumatra,\u2019 p. 386.\n\nFootnote 640:\n\n  Oviedo, \u2018Hist. du Nicaragua,\u2019 pp. 21-51.\n\nFootnote 641:\n\n  Pott, \u2018Zigeuner,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 306; \u2018Indo-Germ. Wurzel-W\u00f6rterbuch,\u2019\n  vol. i. p. 1073; Borrow, \u2018Lavengro,\u2019 vol. ii. ch. xxvi. \u2018write the lil\n  of him whose _dook_ gallops down that hill every night,\u2019 see vol. iii.\n  ch. iv.\n\nFootnote 642:\n\n  Brinton, \u2018Myths of New World,\u2019 p. 253; Comm. in Virg. \u00c6n. iv. 684;\n  Cic. Verr. v. 45; Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 210; Rochholz,\n  \u2018Deutscher Glaube,\u2019 &c. vol. i. p. 111.\n\nFootnote 643:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p. 241.\n\nFootnote 644:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Madagascar,\u2019 vol. i. p. 393.\n\nFootnote 645:\n\n  Charlevoix, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 vol. vi. pp. 75-8; Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian\n  Tribes,\u2019 part i. pp. 33, 83, part iv. p. 70; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 194;\n  J. G. M\u00fcller, pp. 66, 207-8.\n\nFootnote 646:\n\n  Cross in \u2018Journ. Amer. Oriental Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 310.\n\nFootnote 647:\n\n  Macpherson, pp. 91-2. See also Klemm, \u2018C. G.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 71 (Lapp);\n  St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. p. 189 (Dayaks).\n\nFootnote 648:\n\n  Sh\u00fcrmann, \u2018Vocab. of Parnkalla Lang.\u2019 s.v.\n\nFootnote 649:\n\n  Tanner\u2019s \u2018Narr.\u2019 p. 291; Keating, \u2018Narr. of Long\u2019s Exp.\u2019 vol. ii. p.\n  154.\n\nFootnote 650:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p. 242; see the converse process of catching\n  away a man\u2019s soul, causing him to pine and die, p. 250.\n\nFootnote 651:\n\n  J. L. Wilson, \u2018W. Afr.\u2019 p. 220.\n\nFootnote 652:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 319; also Sproat, p. 213 (Vancouver\u2019s\n  I.).\n\nFootnote 653:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 34; Gmelin, \u2018Reisen durch Sibirien,\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 359 (Yakuts); Ravenstein, \u2018Amur,\u2019 p. 351 (Tunguz).\n\nFootnote 654:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. i. p. 143; vol. ii. pp. 388, 418; vol.\n  iii. p. 236. Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 l.c. p. 196, &c.; Cross, \u2018Karens,\u2019 in\n  \u2018Journ. Amer. Oriental Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. 1854, p. 307. See also St. John,\n  \u2018Far East,\u2019 l.c. (Dayaks).\n\nFootnote 655:\n\n  Doolittle, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. i. p. 150.\n\nFootnote 656:\n\n  Cardan, \u2018De Varietate Rerum,\u2019 Basel, 1556, cap. xliii.\n\nFootnote 657:\n\n  Stanbridge, \u2018Abor. of Victoria,\u2019 in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. i. p. 300.\n\nFootnote 658:\n\n  Macpherson, \u2018India,\u2019 p. 103.\n\nFootnote 659:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 269. See also Sproat, l.c.\n\nFootnote 660:\n\n  R\u00fchs, \u2018Finland,\u2019 p. 303; Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Finn. Myth.\u2019 p. 134; Bastian,\n  \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 319.\n\nFootnote 661:\n\n  Vatnsd\u00e6la Saga; Baring-Gould, \u2018Werewolves,\u2019 p. 29.\n\nFootnote 662:\n\n  Plin. vii. 53; Lucian. Hermotimus, Musc. Encom. 7.\n\nFootnote 663:\n\n  R. D. Owen, \u2018Footfalls on the Boundary of another World,\u2019 p. 259. See\n  A. R. Wallace, \u2018Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural,\u2019 p. 43.\n\nFootnote 664:\n\n  Brand, \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019 vol. i. p. 331, vol. iii. p. 236. See Calmet,\n  \u2018Diss. sur les Esprits;\u2019 Maury, \u2018Magie,\u2019 part ii. ch. iv.\n\nFootnote 665:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 257.\n\nFootnote 666:\n\n  Waitz, vol. iii. p. 195.\n\nFootnote 667:\n\n  Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 pp. 104, 184, 333; Baker in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019\n  vol. i. p. 57.\n\nFootnote 668:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 319; Jagor in \u2018Journ. Eth. Soc.,\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 175.\n\nFootnote 669:\n\n  Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 l.c. p. 199; Cross, l.c.; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019\n  vol. i. p. 144, vol. ii. p. 389, vol. iii. p. 266.\n\nFootnote 670:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 pp. 16-20; Eisenmenger, vol. i. p. 458, vol.\n  ii. pp. 13, 20, 453; Franck, \u2018Kabbale,\u2019 p. 235.\n\nFootnote 671:\n\n  Augustin. De Civ. Dei, xviii. 18.\n\nFootnote 672:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 1036.\n\nFootnote 673:\n\n  Charlevoix, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 vol. vi. p. 78; Lafitau, \u2018M\u0153urs des\n  Sauvages,\u2019 vol. i. p. 363.\n\nFootnote 674:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Relig. of Amazulu,\u2019 pp. 228, 260, 316; \u2018Journ. Anthrop.\n  Inst.\u2019 vol. i. p. 170. See also St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. p. 199\n  (Dayaks).\n\nFootnote 675:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p. 242.\n\nFootnote 676:\n\n  Mayne, \u2018Brit. Columbia,\u2019 p. 261; see Sproat, l.c.\n\nFootnote 677:\n\n  J. L. Wilson, \u2018W. Africa,\u2019 pp. 210, 395; M. H. Kingsley, \u2018W. African\n  Studies,\u2019 p. 205. See also Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 396; J. G.\n  M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrel.\u2019 p. 287; Buchanan, \u2018Mysore,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol.\n  viii. p. 677; \u2018Early Hist. of Mankind,\u2019 p. 8.\n\nFootnote 678:\n\n  Homer. Il. xxiii. 59. See also Odyss. xi. 207, 222; Porphyr. De Antro\n  Nympharum; Virgil. \u00c6n. ii. 794; Ovid. Fast. v. 475.\n\nFootnote 679:\n\n  Cicero De Divinatione, i. 27.\n\nFootnote 680:\n\n  Augustin. De Cur\u00e2 pro Mortuis, x.-xii. Epist. clviii.\n\nFootnote 681:\n\n  Compare Voltaire\u2019s remarks, \u2018Dict. Phil.\u2019 art. \u2018ame,\u2019 &c.\n\nFootnote 682:\n\n  Steinhauser, \u2018Religion des Negers,\u2019 in \u2018Magazin der Evang. Missionen\u2019,\n  Basel, 1856, No. 2, p. 135.\n\nFootnote 683:\n\n  \u2018Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo,\u2019 tr. Alfonso Ulloa, Venice,\n  1571, p. 127, Eng. Tr. in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p. 80.\n\nFootnote 684:\n\n  Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Finn. Myth.\u2019 p. 120.\n\nFootnote 685:\n\n  1 Sam. xxviii. 12.\n\nFootnote 686:\n\n  Brinton, \u2018Myths of New World,\u2019 p. 269.\n\nFootnote 687:\n\n  Pennant, \u20182nd Tour in Scotland,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 315;\n  Johnson, \u2018Journey to the Hebrides.\u2019\n\nFootnote 688:\n\n  J. Gardner, \u2018Faiths of the World,\u2019 s.v. \u2018bilocation.\u2019\n\nFootnote 689:\n\n  Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 l.c. p. 198.\n\nFootnote 690:\n\n  Shortland, \u2018Trads. of New Zealand,\u2019 p. 140; Polack, \u2018M. and C. of New\n  Zealanders,\u2019 vol. i. p. 268. See also Ellis, \u2018Madagascar,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  393; J. G. M\u00fcller, p. 261.\n\nFootnote 691:\n\n  Calmet, \u2018Diss. sur les Esprits,\u2019 vol. i. ch. xl.\n\nFootnote 692:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 pp. 44, 56, 208; Brand, \u2018Popular\n  Antiquities,\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 155, 235; Johnson, \u2018Journey to the\n  Hebrides;\u2019 Martin, \u2018Western Islands of Scotland,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol.\n  iii. p. 670.\n\nFootnote 693:\n\n  See R. D. Owen, \u2018Footfalls on the Boundary of another World;\u2019 Mrs.\n  Crowe, \u2018Night-Side of Nature;\u2019 Howitt\u2019s Tr. of Ennemoser\u2019s \u2018Magic,\u2019\n  &c.\n\nFootnote 694:\n\n  The conception of the soul as a small human image is found in various\n  districts; see Eyre, \u2018Australia,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 356; St. John, \u2018Far\n  East,\u2019 vol. i. p. 189 (Dayaks); Waitz, vol. iii. p. 194 (N. A. Ind.).\n  The idea of a soul as a sort of \u2018thumbling\u2019 is familiar to the Hindus\n  and to German folklore; compare the representations of tiny souls in\n  medi\u00e6val pictures.\n\nFootnote 695:\n\n  Magalhanes de Gandavo, p. 110; Maffei, \u2018Indie Orientali,\u2019 p. 107.\n\nFootnote 696:\n\n  Oldfield in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 287.\n\nFootnote 697:\n\n  Waitz, vol. ii. p. 194; R\u00f6mer, \u2018Guinea,\u2019 p. 42.\n\nFootnote 698:\n\n  Meiners, vol. ii. pp. 756, 763; Purchas, vol. iii. p. 495; J. Jones in\n  \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 138.\n\nFootnote 699:\n\n  Calmet, vol. i. ch. xxxvi.; Plin. Ep. vii. 27; Hunt, \u2018Pop. Romances,\u2019\n  vol. ii. p. 156.\n\nFootnote 700:\n\n  Le Jeune in \u2018Rel. des J\u00e9suites,\u2019 1639, p. 43; see 1634, p. 13.\n\nFootnote 701:\n\n  Shortland, \u2018Trads. of N. Z.\u2019 p. 92; Yate, p. 140; R. Taylor, pp. 104,\n  153; Ellis, \u2018Polyn. Res.\u2019 vol. i. p. 406.\n\nFootnote 702:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Rel. of Amazulu,\u2019 pp. 265, 348, 370.\n\nFootnote 703:\n\n  Homer, II. xxiii. 100.\n\nFootnote 704:\n\n  Ovid, Fast. v. 457.\n\nFootnote 705:\n\n  Isaiah viii. 19; xxix. 4. The Arabs hate whistling (el sifr), it is\n  talking to devils (Burton, \u2018First Footsteps in East Africa,\u2019 p. 142).\n  \u2018Nicolaus Remigius, whose \u201cDaemonolatreia\u201d is one of the ghastliest\n  volumes in the ghastly literature of witchcraft, cites Hermolaus\n  Barbarus as having heard the voice _sub-sibilantis daemonis_, and,\n  after giving other instances, adduces the authority of Psellus to\n  prove that the devils generally speak very low and confusedly in order\n  not to be caught fibbing,\u2019 Dr Sebastian Evans in \u2018Nature,\u2019 June 22,\n  1871, p. 140. (Nicolai Remigii Daemonolatreia, Col. Agripp. 1596, lib.\n  i. c. 8, \u2018pleraeque aliae vocem illis esse aiunt qualem emittunt qui\n  os in dolium aut restam rimosam insertum habent\u2019\u2014\u2018ut Daemones e pelvi\n  stridul\u00e2 voce ac tenui sibilo verba ederent\u2019).\n\nFootnote 706:\n\n  Morgan, \u2018Iroquois,\u2019 p. 176.\n\nFootnote 707:\n\n  Flacourt, \u2018Madagascar,\u2019 p. 101.\n\nFootnote 708:\n\n  N. B. Dennys, \u2018Folk-Lore of China,\u2019 p. 22.\n\nFootnote 709:\n\n  Monnier, \u2018Traditions Populaires,\u2019 p. 142; Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019\n  p. 209; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 801; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 761.\n\nFootnote 710:\n\n  Lang, \u2018Queensland,\u2019 p. 441; Bonwick, \u2018Tasmanians,\u2019 p. 187.\n\nFootnote 711:\n\n  Charlevoix, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 vol. vi. pp. 76, 122; Le Jeune in \u2018Rel.\n  des J\u00e9suites,\u2019 1634, p. 23; 1639, p. 44; Tanner\u2019s \u2018Narr.\u2019 p. 292;\n  Peter Jones, \u2018Hist. of Ojebway Indians,\u2019 p. 99.\n\nFootnote 712:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 323.\n\nFootnote 713:\n\n  Meiners, vol. i. p. 318.\n\nFootnote 714:\n\n  Festus, s.v. \u2018everriatores;\u2019 see Bastian, l.c., and compare Hartknoch,\n  cited below, vol. ii. p. 40.\n\nFootnote 715:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 pp. 132, 216.\n\nFootnote 716:\n\n  Casalis, \u2018Basutos,\u2019 p. 285; Glanvil, \u2018Saducismus Triumphatus,\u2019 part\n  ii. p. 161; Wuttke, p. 216; Bastian \u2018Psychologie\u2019 p. 192.\n\nFootnote 717:\n\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 135.\n\nFootnote 718:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 257.\n\nFootnote 719:\n\n  Rochefort, \u2018Iles Antilles,\u2019 p. 429.\n\nFootnote 720:\n\n  Loubere, \u2018Siam,\u2019 vol. i. p. 458; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019 vol. iii. p.\n  259; see p. 278.\n\nFootnote 721:\n\n  Diog. Laert. x. 67-8; see Serv. ad. \u00c6n. iv. 654.\n\nFootnote 722:\n\n  Iren\u00e6us contra H\u00e6res. v. 7, 1; see Origen, De Princep. ii. 3, 2.\n\nFootnote 723:\n\n  Tertull. De Anima, 9.\n\nFootnote 724:\n\n  Hampole, \u2018Ayenbite of Inwyt.\u2019\n\nFootnote 725:\n\n  Wuttke, \u2018Volksaberglaube,\u2019 pp. 216, 226.\n\nFootnote 726:\n\n  A. J. Davis, \u2018Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse,\u2019 New York, 1851, p.\n  49.\n\nFootnote 727:\n\n  Calmet, vol. i. ch. xli. &c.\n\nFootnote 728:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 359; vol. iii. pp. 104, 556; Earl,\n  \u2018Eastern Seas,\u2019 p. 266; St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 52, 73, 79,\n  119; Mundy, \u2018Narr. from Brooke\u2019s Journals,\u2019 p. 203. Heads were taken\n  as funeral offerings by the Garos of N. E. India, Eliot in \u2018As. Res.\u2019\n  vol. iii. p. 28, Dalton, \u2018Descr. Ethnol. of Bengal,\u2019 p. 67; see also\n  pp. 46-7 (Kukis).\n\nFootnote 729:\n\n  T. Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 188-204; Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 220. For New Zealand accounts, see R. Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019\n  pp. 218, 227; Polack, \u2018New Zealanders,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 66, 78, 116.\n\nFootnote 730:\n\n  J. M\u2019Coy, \u2018Hist. of Baptist Indian Mission,\u2019 p. 360; Waitz, vol. iii.\n  p. 200.\n\nFootnote 731:\n\n  Rochefort, \u2018Iles Antilles,\u2019 pp. 429, 512; see also J. G. M\u00fcller, pp.\n  174, 222.\n\nFootnote 732:\n\n  Oviedo, \u2018Hist. de las Indias,\u2019 lib. xxix. c. 31; Charlevoix, \u2018Nouv.\n  Fr.\u2019 vol. vi. p. 178 (Natchez); Waitz, vol. iii. p. 219. See Brinton,\n  \u2018Myths of New World,\u2019 p. 239.\n\nFootnote 733:\n\n  Brasseur, \u2018Mexique,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 573.\n\nFootnote 734:\n\n  Piedrahita, \u2018Nuevo Reyno de Granada,\u2019 part i. lib. i. c. 3.\n\nFootnote 735:\n\n  Cieza de Leon, p. 161; Rivero and Tschudi, \u2018Peruv. Ant.\u2019 p. 200;\n  Prescott, \u2018Peru,\u2019 vol. i. p. 29. See statements as to effigies, J. G.\n  M\u00fcller, p. 379.\n\nFootnote 736:\n\n  Simpson, \u2018Journey,\u2019 vol. i. p. 190; similar practice among Takulli or\n  Carrier Ind., Waitz, vol. iii. p. 200.\n\nFootnote 737:\n\n  Burton, \u2018Central Afr.\u2019 vol. i. p. 124; vol. ii. p. 25; \u2018Dahome,\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 18, &c.; \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 403; J. L. Wilson, \u2018W.\n  Afr.\u2019 pp. 203, 219, 394. See also H. Rowley, \u2018Mission to Central\n  Africa,\u2019 p. 229.\n\nFootnote 738:\n\n  Cavazzi, \u20181st. Descr. de\u2019 tre Regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola,\u2019\n  Bologna, 1687, lib. i. 264; Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 419-21; Callaway,\n  \u2018Religion of Amazulu,\u2019 p. 212.\n\nFootnote 739:\n\n  Renaudot, \u2018Acc. by two Mohammedan Travellers,\u2019 London, 1733, p. 81;\n  and in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 215; Marco Polo, book iii. chap. xx.;\n  and in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 162.\n\nFootnote 740:\n\n  Caron, \u2018Japan,\u2019 ibid., p. 622; Siebold, \u2018Nippon,\u2019 v. p. 22.\n\nFootnote 741:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 new series, vol. ii. p. 374.\n\nFootnote 742:\n\n  Legge, \u2018Confucius,\u2019 p. 119; Doolittle, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 108,\n  174, 192. The practice of attacking or killing all persons met by a\n  funeral procession is perhaps generally connected with funeral human\n  sacrifice; any one met on the road by the funeral of a Mongol prince\n  was slain and ordered to go as escort; in the Kimbunda country, any\n  one who meets a royal funeral procession is put to death with the\n  other victims at the grave (Magyar, \u2018S\u00fcd. Afrika,\u2019 p. 353); see also\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol. i. p. 403; Cook, \u2018First Voy.\u2019 vol. i. pp.\n  146, 236 (Tahiti).\n\nFootnote 743:\n\n  Jakob Grimm, \u2018Verbrennen der Leichen,\u2019 contains an instructive\n  collection of references and citations.\n\nFootnote 744:\n\n  Homer, Il. xxiii. 175; Eurip. Suppl.; Pausanias, iv. 2.\n\nFootnote 745:\n\n  Edda, \u2018Gylfaginning,\u2019 49; \u2018Brynhildarqvitha,\u2019 &c.\n\nFootnote 746:\n\n  C\u00e6sar., Bell. Gall. vi. 19.\n\nFootnote 747:\n\n  Hanusch, \u2018Slaw. Myth.\u2019 p. 145.\n\nFootnote 748:\n\n  Strabo, xv. 1, 62; Cic. Tusc. Disp. v. 27, 78; Diod. Sic. xvii. 91;\n  xix. 33, &c.; Grimm, \u2018Verbrennen,\u2019 p. 261; Renaudot, \u2018Two\n  Mohammedans,\u2019 p. 4; and in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 194. See Buchanan,\n  ibid. pp. 675, 682; Ward, \u2018Hindoos,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 298-312.\n\nFootnote 749:\n\n  H. H. Wilson, \u2018On the supposed Vaidik authority for the Burning of\n  Hindu Widows,\u2019 in \u2018Journ. Roy. As. Soc.\u2019 vol. xvi. (1854) p. 201; in\n  his \u2018Works,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 270. Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Todtenbestattung bei den\n  Brahmanen,\u2019 in \u2018Zeitschr. der Deutsch. Morgenl. Ges.\u2019 vol. ix.;\n  \u2018Chips,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 34.\n\nFootnote 750:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part i. p. 543; part iii. pp. 229, 520;\n  Waitz, vol. iii. pp. 191-3.\n\nFootnote 751:\n\n  Klemm, \u2018Cultur-Gesch.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 355, 364; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 178.\n\nFootnote 752:\n\n  Mouhot, \u2018Indo-China,\u2019 vol. i. p. 252.\n\nFootnote 753:\n\n  Wood in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 36.\n\nFootnote 754:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 26.\n\nFootnote 755:\n\n  De Brosses, \u2018Dieux F\u00e9tiches,\u2019 p. 61.\n\nFootnote 756:\n\n  Ravenstein, \u2018Amur,\u2019 p. 382; T. W. Atkinson, p. 483.\n\nFootnote 757:\n\n  St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 253 (Dayaks).\n\nFootnote 758:\n\n  Charlevoix, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 vol. vi. p. 78; Sagard, \u2018Hist. du\n  Canada,\u2019 p. 497; Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iii. p. 229.\n\nFootnote 759:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 p. 257.\n\nFootnote 760:\n\n  Taylor, \u2018New Zealand,\u2019 p. 271; Ellis, \u2018Madagascar,\u2019 vol. i. p. 429.\n\nFootnote 761:\n\n  Steller, \u2018Kamtschatka,\u2019 p. 269.\n\nFootnote 762:\n\n  Stewart, \u2018Notes on Northern Cachar,\u2019 in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 vol.\n  xxiv. p. 632; Cross, \u2018Karens,\u2019 l.c.; Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 l.c.\n\nFootnote 763:\n\n  Callaway, \u2018Zulu Tales,\u2019 vol. i. p. 317.\n\nFootnote 764:\n\n  Low in \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p. 426. See Meiners, vol. i. p.\n  220; vol. ii. p. 791.\n\nFootnote 765:\n\n  Juvenal, Sat. xv. 148.\n\nFootnote 766:\n\n  Alger, \u2018Future Life,\u2019 p. 632, and see \u2018Bibliography,\u2019 appendix ii.;\n  Wesley, \u2018Sermon on Rom. viii. 19-22;\u2019 Adam Clarke, \u2018Commentary,\u2019 on\n  same text. This, by the way, is the converse view to Bellarmine\u2019s, who\n  so patiently let the fleas bite him, saying, \u2018We shall have heaven to\n  reward us for our sufferings, but these poor creatures have nothing\n  but the enjoyment of the present life.\u2019\u2014Bayle \u2018Biog. Dic.\u2019 The\n  argument in Butler\u2019s \u2018Analogy,\u2019 part i. ch. i. puts the evidence for\n  souls of brutes on much the same footing as that for souls of men.\n\nFootnote 767:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part i. pp. 237, 262; part ii. p. 68.\n\nFootnote 768:\n\n  D\u2019Orbigny, \u2018L\u2019Homme Am\u00e9ricain,\u2019 vol. i. p. 196; vol. ii. pp. 23, 78;\n  Falkner, \u2018Patagonia,\u2019 p. 118; Musters, \u2018Patagonians,\u2019 p. 178.\n\nFootnote 769:\n\n  Egede, \u2018Greenland,\u2019 p. 152; Cranz, p. 301: sec Nilsson, p. 140.\n  Torquemada, \u2018Monarquia Indiana,\u2019 xiii. ch. 47; Clavigero, \u2018Messico,\u2019\n  vol. ii. pp. 94-6.\n\nFootnote 770:\n\n  Georgi, \u2018Reise im Russ. R.\u2019 vol. i. p. 312.\n\nFootnote 771:\n\n  Baron, \u2018Tonquin,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 704.\n\nFootnote 772:\n\n  W. G. Palgrave, \u2018Arabia,\u2019 vol. i. p. 10; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii.\n  p. 334; Waitz, vol. ii. p. 519 (Gallas).\n\nFootnote 773:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018Verbrennen der Leichen.\u2019 A curious correspondence in the\n  practice of cutting off a fowl\u2019s head as a funeral rite is to be\n  noticed among the Yorubas of W. Africa (Burton, \u2018W. and W.\u2019 p. 220),\n  Chuwashes of Siberia (Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Finn. Myth.\u2019 p. 120), old Russians\n  (Grimm, \u2018Verbrennen,\u2019 p. 254).\n\nFootnote 774:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 335.\n\nFootnote 775:\n\n  Colebrooke, \u2018Essays,\u2019 vol. i. p. 177; Ward, \u2018Hindoos,\u2019 vol. ii. pp.\n  62, 284, 331.\n\nFootnote 776:\n\n  Mannhardt, \u2018G\u00f6tterwelt der Deutschen, &c.\u2019 vol. i. p. 319.\n\nFootnote 777:\n\n  Saint-Foix, \u2018\u0152uvres,\u2019 Maestricht, 1778, vol. iv. p. 150.\n\nFootnote 778:\n\n  Chr. von Stramberg, \u2018Rheinischer Antiquarius,\u2019 i. vol. i., Coblence,\n  1851, p. 203; J. M. Kemble, \u2018Hor\u00e6 Ferales,\u2019 p. 66.\n\nFootnote 779:\n\n  Moerenhout, \u2018Voy. Aux Iles du Grand Oc\u00e9an,\u2019 vol. i. p. 430.\n\nFootnote 780:\n\n  St. John \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. p. 187.\n\nFootnote 781:\n\n  Mason, \u2018Karens,\u2019 in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1865, part ii. p. 202;\n  Cross in \u2018Journ. Amer. Oriental Soc.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 309. See comparison\n  of Siamese and Malay ideas; Low in \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  340.\n\nFootnote 782:\n\n  Hardy, \u2018Manual of Budhism,\u2019 pp. 291, 443; Bastian, \u2018Oestl. Asien,\u2019\n  vol. ii. p. 184; Marco Polo, book iii. ch. xxii. (compare various\n  readings); Meiners, vol. i. p. 215; vol. ii. p. 799.\n\nFootnote 783:\n\n  Malay evidence has since been noticed by Wilken, \u2018Het Animisme bij den\n  Volken van den Indischen Archipel.\u2019 p. 104. (Note to 3rd edition.)\n\nFootnote 784:\n\n  Hume, \u2018Nat. Hist. of Rel.\u2019 sec. ii.; Comte, \u2018Philosophie Positive,\u2019\n  vol. v. p. 30.\n\nFootnote 785:\n\n  Charlevoix, vol. vi. p. 74; Keating, \u2018Long\u2019s Exp.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 154; Le\n  Jeune, \u2018Nouvelle France,\u2019 p. 59; also Waitz, vol. iii. p. 199; Gregg,\n  \u2018Commerce of Prairies,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 244; see Addison\u2019s No. 56 of the\n  \u2018Spectator.\u2019\n\nFootnote 786:\n\n  Mariner, \u2018Tonga Is.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 129; Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  242. Similar ideas in Tahiti, Cook\u2019s 3rd Voy. vol. ii. p. 166.\n\nFootnote 787:\n\n  Cross, l.c. pp. 309, 313; Mason, l.c. p. 202. Compare Meiners, vol. i.\n  p. 144; Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Finn. Myth.\u2019 pp. 161-3.\n\nFootnote 788:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part ii. p. 68; \u2018Algec Res.\u2019 vol. ii. p.\n  128; Lallemant in \u2018Rel. des J\u00e9suites dans la Nouvelle France,\u2019 1626,\n  p. 3.\n\nFootnote 789:\n\n  Williams, \u2018Fiji,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 188, 243, 246; Alger, p. 82; Seemann,\n  \u2018Viti,\u2019 p. 229.\n\nFootnote 790:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 new series, vol. ii. p. 421.\n\nFootnote 791:\n\n  For some cases in which horror or abnegation are assigned as motives\n  for abandonment of the dead man\u2019s property, see Humboldt and Bonpland,\n  vol. v. p. 626; Dalton in \u2018Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,\u2019 1866, part ii. p.\n  191, &c.; Earl, \u2018Papuans,\u2019 p. 108; Callaway, \u2018Rel. of Amazulu,\u2019 p. 13;\n  Egede, \u2018Greenland,\u2019 p. 151; Cranz, p. 301; Loskiel, \u2018Ind. N. A.\u2019 part\n  i. p. 64, but see p. 76. The destruction or abandonment of the whole\n  property of the dead may plausibly, whether justly or not, be\n  explained by horror or abnegation; but these motives do not generally\n  apply to cases where only part of the property is sacrificed, or new\n  objects are provided expressly, and here the service of the dead seems\n  the reasonable motive. Thus, at the funeral of a Garo girl, earthen\n  vessels were broken as they were thrown in above the buried ashes.\n  \u2018They said, the spirit of the girl would not benefit by them if they\n  were given unbroken, but for her the fragments would unite again.\u2019\n  (Dalton, \u2018Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal,\u2019 p. 67.) The mere fact of\n  breaking or destruction of objects at funerals does not carry its own\n  explanation, for it is equally applicable to sentimental abandonment\n  and to practical transmission of the spirit of the object, as a man is\n  killed to liberate his soul. For good cases of the breaking of vessels\n  and utensils given to the dead, see \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p.\n  325 (Mintira); Grey, \u2018Australia,\u2019 vol. i. p. 322; G. F. Moore, \u2018Vocab.\n  W. Australia,\u2019 p. 13 (Australians); Markham in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol.\n  iii. p. 188 (Ticunas); St. John, vol. i. p. 68 (Dayaks); Ellis,\n  \u2018Madagascar,\u2019 vol. i. p. 254; Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part i. p.\n  84 (Appalachicola); D. Wilson, \u2018Prehistoric Man,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 196 (N.\n  A. I. and ancient graves in England). Cases of formal sacrifice where\n  objects are offered to the dead and taken away again, are generally\n  doubtful as to motive; see Spix and Martius, vol. i. p. 383; Martius,\n  vol. i. p. 485 (Brazilian Tribes); Moffat, \u2018S. Africa,\u2019 p. 308\n  (Bechuanas); \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 149 (Kayans).\n\nFootnote 792:\n\n  Alger, \u2018Future Life,\u2019 p. 81. He treats, however (p. 76), as\n  intentionally symbolic the rite of the Winnebagos, who light fires on\n  the grave to provide night after night camp-fires for the soul on its\n  far journey (Schoolcraft, \u2018Ind. Tr.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 55; the idea is\n  introduced in Longfellow\u2019s \u2018Hiawatha,\u2019 xix.). I agree with Dr. Brinton\n  (\u2018Myths of New World,\u2019 p. 241) that to look for recondite symbolic\n  meaning in these simple childish rites is unreasonable. There was a\n  similar Aztec rite (Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 94). The Mintira light\n  fires on the grave for the spirit to warm itself at (\u2018Journ. Ind.\n  Archip.\u2019 vol. i. p. 325, see p. 271, and compare Martius, vol. i. p.\n  491). So Australians will light a fire near their camp at night for\n  the ghost of some lately dead relative to sit by (Millett, \u2018Australian\n  Parsonage,\u2019 p. 76.)\n\nFootnote 793:\n\n  J. G. M\u00fcller, \u2018Amer. Urrelig.\u2019 p. 222, see 420.\n\nFootnote 794:\n\n  Bosman, \u2018Guinea,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 430.\n\nFootnote 795:\n\n  Polack, \u2018M. of New Zealanders,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 66, 78, 116, 127.\n\nFootnote 796:\n\n  Georgi, \u2018Russ. R.\u2019 vol. i. p. 266; Herodot. iv. 71, see note in\n  Rawlinson\u2019s Tr. &c. &c.\n\nFootnote 797:\n\n  Oldfield in \u2018Tr. Eth. Soc.\u2019 vol. iii. pp. 228, 245.\n\nFootnote 798:\n\n  Bonwick, \u2018Tasmanians,\u2019 p. 97.\n\nFootnote 799:\n\n  Cranz, \u2018Gr\u00f6nland,\u2019 pp. 263, 301.\n\nFootnote 800:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iv. pp. 55, 65; J. G. M\u00fcller,\n  \u2018Amer. Urrel.\u2019 pp. 88, 287.\n\nFootnote 801:\n\n  Sahagun, book iii. App. in Kingsborough, \u2018Antiquities of Mexico,\u2019 vol.\n  vii.; Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 94; Brasseur, vol. iii. pp. 497, 569.\n\nFootnote 802:\n\n  Cieza de Leon, p. 161; Rivero and Tschudi, \u2018Peruvian Antiquities,\u2019 pp.\n  186, 200.\n\nFootnote 803:\n\n  Ellis, \u2018Hist, of Madagascar,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 254, 429; see Flacourt, p.\n  60.\n\nFootnote 804:\n\n  Castr\u00e9n, \u2018Finn. Myth,\u2019 p. 118; J. Billings, \u2018Exp. to N. Russia,\u2019 p.\n  129; see \u2018Samoiedia\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 532, and Leems,\n  \u2018Lapland,\u2019 ibid. p. 484.\n\nFootnote 805:\n\n  Boecler, \u2018Ehsten Gebra\u00fcche,\u2019 p. 69.\n\nFootnote 806:\n\n  \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. ii. p. 691; see vol. i. pp. 297, 349.\n\nFootnote 807:\n\n  Bastian, \u2018Psychologie,\u2019 p. 89; \u2018Journ. Ind. Archip.\u2019 vol. iii. p. 337.\n  For other instances, see Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 332, &c.;\n  Alger, \u2018Future Life,\u2019 part ii.\n\nFootnote 808:\n\n  Klemm, \u2018C. G.\u2019 vol. iv. p. 159; Ezek. xxxii. 27.\n\nFootnote 809:\n\n  Max M\u00fcller, \u2018Todtenbestattung der Brahmanen,\u2019 in D. M. Z. vol. ix. pp.\n  vii.-xiv.\n\nFootnote 810:\n\n  Lucian. De Luctu, 9, &c.; Philopseudes, 27; Strabo, viii. 6, 12;\n  Herodot. v. 92; Smith\u2019s \u2018Dic. Gr. and Rom. Ant.\u2019 art. \u2018funus.\u2019\n\nFootnote 811:\n\n  Valer. Max. ii.; Mela, iii. 2. Froius (1565) in Maffei, \u2018Histor.\n  Indicarum,\u2019 lib. iv.\n\nFootnote 812:\n\n  Grimm, \u2018Verbrennen der Leichen,\u2019 pp. 232, &c., 247, &c.; \u2018Deutsche\n  Myth.\u2019 pp. 795-800.\n\nFootnote 813:\n\n  Dusburg, \u2018Chronicon Prussi\u00e6,\u2019 iii. c. v.; Hanusch, \u2018Slaw. Myth.\u2019 pp.\n  898, 415 (Anafielas is the glass-mountain of Slavonic and German myth,\n  see Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 p. 796). Compare statement in St. Clair and Brophy,\n  \u2018Bulgaria,\u2019 p. 61; as to food transmitted to dead in other world, with\n  more probable explanation, p. 77.\n\nFootnote 814:\n\n  St. John, \u2018Far East,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 54, 68. Compare Bosman, \u2018Guinea,\u2019 in\n  Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 430.\n\nFootnote 815:\n\n  Schoolcraft, \u2018Indian Tribes,\u2019 part iv. p. 54.\n\nFootnote 816:\n\n  Hunter, \u2018Rural Bengal,\u2019 p. 210.\n\nFootnote 817:\n\n  Davis, \u2018Chinese,\u2019 vol. i. p. 276; Doolittle, vol. i. p. 193; vol. ii.\n  p. 275; Bastian, \u2018Mensch,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 334; see Marco Polo, book ii.\n  ch. lxviii.\n\nFootnote 818:\n\n  Colebrooke, \u2018Essays,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 161, 169.\n\nFootnote 819:\n\n  Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 p. 142; Wilkinson, \u2018Ancient Eg.\u2019 vol.\n  ii. p. 319.\n\nFootnote 820:\n\n  Beeckmann, \u2018Voy. to Borneo,\u2019 in Pinkerton, vol. xi. p. 110.\n\nFootnote 821:\n\n  Politis, \u2018Neohellen. Mythologia,\u2019 vol. i. part i. p. 266; Hartknoch,\n  \u2018Alt. und Neues Preussen,\u2019 part i. p. 181; Grimm, \u2018D. M.\u2019 pp. 791-5;\n  Wuttke, \u2018Deutsche Volksaberglaube,\u2019 p. 212; Rochholz, \u2018Deutscher\n  Glaube,\u2019 &c. vol. i. p. 187, &c.; Maury, \u2018Magie,\u2019 &c. p. 158 (France).\n\nFootnote 822:\n\n  Maitland, \u2018Church in the Catacombs,\u2019 p. 137; Forbes Leslie, vol. ii.\n  p. 502; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 750; Brand, \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019, vol. ii. p. 307.\n\nFootnote 823:\n\n  Ward, \u2018Hindoos,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 284.\n\nFootnote 824:\n\n  From the collated and annotated text in J. C. Atkinson, \u2018Glossary of\n  Cleveland Dialect,\u2019 p. 595 (a = one, neean = none, beean = bone).\n  Other versions in Scott, \u2018Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,\u2019 vol. ii.\n  p. 367; Kelly, \u2018Indo-European Folk-lore,\u2019 p. 115; Brand, \u2018Pop. Ant.\u2019\n  vol. ii. p. 275. Two verses have perhaps been lost between the fifth\n  and sixth. J. C. A. reads \u2018meate\u2019 in vv. 7 and 8; the usual reading\n  \u2018milke\u2019 is retained here. The sense of these two verses may be that\n  the liquor sacrificed in life will quench the fire: an idea parallel\n  to that known to folklore, that he who gave bread in his lifetime will\n  find it after death ready for him to cast into the hellhound\u2019s jaws\n  (Mannhardt, \u2018G\u00f6tterwelt der Deutschen und Nordischen V\u00f6lker,\u2019 p. 319),\n  a sop to Cerberus.\n\nFootnote 825:\n\n  Lewes, \u2018Biographical History of Philosophy,\u2019 Democritus (and see his\n  remarks on Reid); Lucretius, lib. iv.; \u2018Early Hist. of Mankind,\u2019 p. 8;\n  Stewart, \u2018Philosophy of Human Mind,\u2019 vol. i. chap. i. sec. 2; Reid,\n  \u2018Essays,\u2019 ii. chaps. iv. xiv.; see Thos. Browne, \u2018Philosophy of the\n  Mind,\u2019 lect. 27.\n\nEND OF VOL. I.\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n    \u25cb Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are\n      referenced.","title":"Primitive culture, vol. 1 (of 2) : $b Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":182377}