{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Introduction/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Introduction","id":"wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Introduction","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Custom_and_Myth/Introduction","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"INTRODUCTION.'\n\nThough some of the essays in this volume have appeared in various\nserials, the majority of them were written expressly for their present\npurpose, and they are now arranged in a designed order. During\nsome years of study of Greek, Indian, and savage mythologies, I have\nbecome more and more impressed with a sense of the inadequacy of the\nprevalent method of comparative mythology. That method is based\non the belief that myths are the result of a disease of language, as\nthe pearl is the result of a disease of the oyster. It is argued\nthat men at some period, or periods, spoke in a singular style of coloured\nand concrete language, and that their children retained the phrases\nof this language after losing hold of the original meaning. The\nconsequence was the growth of myths about supposed persons, whose names\nhad originally been mere \u2018appellations.\u2019 In conformity\nwith this hypothesis the method of comparative mythology examines the\nproper names which occur in myths. The notion is that these names\ncontain a key to the meaning of the story, and that, in fact, of the\nstory the names are the germs and the oldest surviving part.\n\nThe objections to this method are so numerous that it is difficult\nto state them briefly. The attempt, however, must be made.\nTo desert the path opened by the most eminent scholars is in itself\npresumptuous; the least that an innovator can do is to give his reasons\nfor advancing in a novel direction. If this were a question of\nscholarship merely, it would be simply foolhardy to differ from men\nlike Max M\u00fcller, Adalbert Kuhn, Br\u00e9al, and many others.\nBut a revolutionary mythologist is encouraged by finding that these\nscholars usually differ from each other. Examples will be found\nchiefly in the essays styled \u2018The Myth of Cronus,\u2019 \u2018A\nFar-travelled Tale,\u2019 and \u2018Cupid and Psyche.\u2019\nWhy, then, do distinguished scholars and mythologists reach such different\ngoals? Clearly because their method is so precarious. They\nall analyse the names in myths; but, where one scholar decides that\nthe name is originally Sanskrit, another holds that it is purely Greek,\nand a third, perhaps, is all for an Accadian etymology, or a Semitic\nderivation. Again, even when scholars agree as to the original\nroot from which a name springs, they differ as much as ever as to the\nmeaning of the name in its present place. The inference is, that\nthe analysis of names, on which the whole edifice of philological \u2018comparative\nmythology\u2019 rests, is a foundation of shifting sand. The\nmethod is called \u2018orthodox,\u2019 but, among those who practise\nit, there is none of the beautiful unanimity of orthodoxy.\n\nThese objections are not made by the unscholarly anthropologist alone.\nCurtius has especially remarked the difficulties which beset the \u2018etymological\noperation\u2019 in the case of proper names. \u2018Peculiarly\ndubious and perilous is mythological etymology. Are we to seek\nthe sources of the divine names in aspects of nature, or in moral conceptions;\nin special Greek geographical conditions, or in natural circumstances\nwhich are everywhere the same: in dawn with her rays, or in clouds with\ntheir floods; are we to seek the origin of the names of heroes in things\nhistorical and human, or in physical phenomena?\u2019\nProfessor Tiele, of Leyden, says much the same thing: \u2018The uncertainties\nare great, and there is a constant risk of taking mere jeux d\u2019esprit for scientific results.\u2019\nEvery name has, if we can discover or conjecture it, a meaning.\nThat meaning\u2014be it \u2018large\u2019 or \u2018small,\u2019\n\u2018loud\u2019 or \u2018bright,\u2019 \u2018wise\u2019 or \u2018dark,\u2019\n\u2018swift\u2019 or \u2018slow\u2019\u2014is always capable of\nbeing explained as an epithet of the sun, or of the cloud, or of both.\nWhatever, then, a name may signify, some scholars will find that it\noriginally denoted the cloud, if they belong to one school, or the sun\nor dawn, if they belong to another faction. Obviously this process\nis a mere jeu d\u2019esprit. This logic would be admitted\nin no other science, and, by similar arguments, any name whatever might\nbe shown to be appropriate to a solar hero.\n\nThe scholarly method has now been applied for many years, and what\nare the results? The ideas attained by the method have been so\npopularised that they are actually made to enter into the education\nof children, and are published in primers and catechisms of mythology.\nBut what has a discreet scholar to say to the whole business?\n\u2018The difficult task of interpreting mythical names has, so far,\nproduced few certain results\u2019\u2014so writes Otto Schrader.\nThough Schrader still has hopes of better things, it is admitted that\nthe present results are highly disputable. In England, where one\nset of these results has become an article of faith, readers chiefly\naccept the opinions of a single etymological school, and thus escape\nthe difficulty of making up their minds when scholars differ.\nBut differ scholars do, so widely and so often, that scarcely any solid\nadvantages have been gained in mythology from the philological method.\n\nThe method of philological mythology is thus discredited by the disputes\nof its adherents. The system may be called orthodox, but it is\nan orthodoxy which alters with every new scholar who enters the sacred\nenclosure. Even were there more harmony, the analysis of names\ncould throw little light on myths. In stories the names may well\nbe, and often demonstrably are, the latest, not the original, feature.\nTales, at first told of \u2018Somebody,\u2019 get new names attached\nto them, and obtain a new local habitation, wherever they wander.\n\u2018One of the leading personages to be met in the traditions of\nthe world is really no more than\u2014Somebody. There is nothing\nthis wondrous creature cannot achieve; one only restriction binds him\nat all\u2014that the name he assumes shall have some sort of congruity\nwith the office he undertakes, and even from this he oftentimes breaks loose.\u2019\nWe may be pretty sure that the adventures of Jason, Perseus, \u0152dipous,\nwere originally told only of \u2018Somebody.\u2019 The names\nare later additions, and vary in various lands. A glance at the\nessay on \u2018Cupid and Psyche\u2019 will show that a history like\ntheirs is known, where neither they nor their counterparts in the Veda,\nUrvasi and Pururavas, were ever heard of; while the incidents of the\nJason legend are familiar where no Greek word was ever spoken.\nFinally, the names in common use among savages are usually derived from\nnatural phenomena, often from clouds, sky, sun, dawn. If, then,\na name in a myth can be proved to mean cloud, sky, sun, or what not\n(and usually one set of scholars find clouds, where others see the dawn),\nwe must not instantly infer that the myth is a nature-myth. Though,\ndoubtless, the heroes in it were never real people, the names are as\nmuch common names of real people in the savage state, as Smith and Brown\nare names of civilised men.\n\nFor all these reasons, but chiefly because of the fact that stories\nare usually anonymous at first, that names are added later, and that\nstories naturally crystallise round any famous name, heroic, divine,\nor human, the process of analysis of names is most precarious and untrustworthy.\nA story is told of Zeus: Zeus means sky, and the story is interpreted\nby scholars as a sky myth. The modern interpreter forgets, first,\nthat to the myth-maker sky did not at all mean the same thing as it\nmeans to him. Sky meant, not an airy, infinite, radiant vault,\nbut a person, and, most likely, a savage person. Secondly, the\ninterpreter forgets that the tale (say the tale of Zeus, Demeter, and\nthe mutilated Ram) may have been originally anonymous, and only later\nattributed to Zeus, as unclaimed jests are attributed to Sheridan or\nTalleyrand. Consequently no heavenly phenomena will be the basis\nand explanation of the story. If one thing in mythology be certain,\nit is that myths are always changing masters, that the old tales are\nalways being told with new names. Where, for example, is the value\nof a philological analysis of the name of Jason? As will be seen\nin the essay \u2018A Far-travelled Tale,\u2019 the analysis of the\nname of Jason is fanciful, precarious, disputed, while the essence of\nhis myth is current in Samoa, Finland, North America, Madagascar, and\nother lands, where the name was never heard, and where the characters\nin the story have other names or are anonymous.\n\nFor these reasons, and others too many to be adduced here, I have\nventured to differ from the current opinion that myths must be interpreted\nchiefly by philological analysis of names. The system adopted\nhere is explained in the first essay, called \u2018The Method of Folklore.\u2019\nThe name, Folklore, is not a good one, but \u2018comparative mythology\u2019\nis usually claimed exclusively by the philological interpreters.\n\nThe second essay, \u2018The Bull-Roarer,\u2019 is intended to show\nthat certain peculiarities in the Greek mysteries occur also in the\nmysteries of savages, and that on Greek soil they are survivals of savagery.\n\n\u2018The Myth of Cronus\u2019 tries to prove that the first part\nof the legend is a savage nature-myth, surviving in Greek religion,\nwhile the sequel is a set of ideas common to savages.\n\n\u2018Cupid and Psyche\u2019 traces another Aryan myth among savage\nraces, and attempts to show that the myth may have had its origin in\na rule of barbarous etiquette.\n\n\u2018A Far-travelled Tale\u2019 examines a part of the Jason myth.\nThis myth appears neither to be an explanation of natural phenomena\n(like part of the Myth of Cronus), nor based on a widespread custom\n(like Cupid and Psyche.) The question is asked whether the story\nmay have been diffused by slow filtration from race to race all over\nthe globe, as there seems no reason why it should have been invented\nseparately (as a myth explanatory of natural phenomena or of customs\nmight be) in many different places.\n\n\u2018Apollo and the Mouse\u2019 suggests hypothetically, as a\npossible explanation of the tie between the God and the Beast, that\nApollo-worship superseded, but did not eradicate, Totemism. The\nsuggestion is little more than a conjecture.\n\n\u2018Star Myths\u2019 points out that Greek myths of stars are\na survival from the savage stage of fancy in which such stories are\nnatural.\n\n\u2018Moly and Mandragora\u2019 is a study of the Greek, the modern,\nand the Hottentot folklore of magical herbs, with a criticism of a scholarly\nand philological hypothesis, according to which Moly is the dog-star,\nand Circe the moon.\n\n\u2018The Kalevala\u2019 is an account of the Finnish national\npoem; of all poems that in which the popular, as opposed to the artistic,\nspirit is strongest. The Kalevala is thus a link between M\u00e4rchen and Volkslieder on one side, and epic poetry on the other.\n\n\u2018The Divining Rod\u2019 is a study of a European and civilised\nsuperstition, which is singular in its comparative lack of copious savage\nanalogues.\n\n\u2018Hottentot Mythology\u2019 is a criticism of the philological\nmethod, applied to savage myth.\n\n\u2018Fetichism and the Infinite,\u2019 is a review of Mr. Max\nM\u00fcller\u2019s theory that a sense of the Infinite is the germ\nof religion, and that Fetichism is secondary, and a corruption.\nThis essay also contains a defence of the evidence on which the\nanthropological method relies.\n\nThe remaining essays are studies of the \u2018History of the Family,\u2019\nand of \u2018Savage Art.\u2019\n\nThe essay on \u2018Savage Art\u2019 is reprinted, by the kind permission\nof Messrs. Cassell & Co., from two numbers (April and May, 1882)\nof the Magazine of Art. I have to thank the editors and publishers of the Contemporary Review, the Cornhill Magazine, and Fraser\u2019s Magazine, for leave to republish \u2018The\nEarly History of the Family,\u2019 \u2018The Divining Rod,\u2019\nand \u2018Star Myths,\u2019 and \u2018The Kalevala.\u2019\nA few sentences in \u2018The Bull-Roarer,\u2019 and \u2018Hottentot\nMythology,\u2019 appeared in essays in the Saturday Review, and some lines of \u2018The Method of Folklore\u2019 in the Guardian.\nTo the editors of those journals also I owe thanks for their courteous\npermission to make this use of my old articles.\n\nTo Mr. E. B. Tylor and Mr. W. R. S. Ralston I must express my gratitude\nfor the kindness with which they have always helped me in all difficulties.\n\nI must apologise for the controversial matter in the volume.\nControversy is always a thing to be avoided, but, in this particular\ncase, when a system opposed to the prevalent method has to be advocated,\ncontroversy is unavoidable. My respect for the learning of my\ndistinguished adversaries is none the less great because I am not convinced\nby their logic, and because my doubts are excited by their differences.\n\nPerhaps, it should be added, that these essays are, so to speak,\nonly flint-flakes from a neolithic workshop. This little book\nmerely skirmishes (to change the metaphor) in front of a much more methodical\nattempt to vindicate the anthropological interpretation of myths.\nBut lack of leisure and other causes make it probable that my \u2018Key\nto All Mythologies\u2019 will go the way of Mr. Casaubon\u2019s treatise.\n\nFootnotes","title":"Custom and Myth/Introduction","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":2174}