{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Star_Myths/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Star_Myths","id":"wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Star_Myths","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/Star_Myths","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"STAR MYTHS.\n\nArtemus Ward used to say that, while there were many things in the\nscience of astronomy hard to be understood, there was one fact which\nentirely puzzled him. He could partly perceive how we 'weigh\nthe sun,' and ascertain the component elements of the heavenly\nbodies, by the aid of spectrum analysis. 'But what\nbeats me about the stars,' he observed plaintively, 'is\nhow we come to know their names.' This question, or rather\nthe somewhat similar question, 'How did the constellations come\nby their very peculiar names?' has puzzled Professor Pritchard\nand other astronomers more serious than Artemus Ward. Why is a\ngroup of stars called the Bear, or the Swan, or the Twins, or named after the Pleiades, the fair daughters of the Giant\nAtlas? These are difficulties that meet even children when they examine a 'celestial\nglobe.' There they find the figure of a bear, traced out\nwith lines in the intervals between the stars of the constellations,\nwhile a very imposing giant is so drawn that Orion's belt just\nfits his waist. But when he comes to look at the heavens, the\ninfant speculator sees no sort of likeness to a bear in the stars, nor\nanything at all resembling a giant in the neighbourhood of Orion.\nThe most eccentric modern fancy which can detect what shapes it will\nin clouds, is unable to find any likeness to human or animal forms in\nthe stars, and yet we call a great many of the stars by the names of\nmen and beasts and gods. Some resemblance to terrestrial things,\nit is true, everyone can behold in the heavens. Corona,\nfor example, is like a crown, or, as the Australian black fellows know,\nit is like a boomerang, and we can understand why they give it the name\nof that curious curved missile. The Milky Way, again, does resemble a path in the sky; our English ancestors called it Watling Street\u2014the path of the Watlings, mythical giants\u2014and\nBushmen in Africa and Red Men in North America name it the 'ashen\npath,' or 'the path of souls.' The ashes of\nthe path, of course, are supposed to be hot and glowing, not dead and\nblack like the ash-paths of modern running-grounds. Other and\nmore recent names for certain constellations are also intelligible.\nIn Homer's time the Greeks had two names for the Great Bear; they called it the Bear, or the Wain: and a certain fanciful\nlikeness to a wain may be made out, though no resemblance to a bear\nis manifest. In the United States the same constellation is popularly\nstyled the Dipper, and every one may observe the likeness to\na dipper or toddy-ladle.\n\nBut these resemblances take us only a little way towards appellations.\nWe know that we derive many of the names straight from the Greek; but\nwhence did the Greeks get them? Some, it is said, from the Chald\u00e6ans;\nbut whence did they reach the Chald\u00e6ans? To this we shall\nreturn later, but, as to early Greek star-lore, Goguet, the author of\n'L'Origine des Lois,' a rather learned but too speculative\nwork of the last century, makes the following characteristic remarks:\n'The Greeks received their astronomy from Prometheus. This\nprince, as far as history teaches us, made his observations on Mount\nCaucasus.' That was the eighteenth century's method\nof interpreting mythology. The myth preserved in the 'Prometheus\nBound' of \u00c6schylus tells us that Zeus crucified the Titan\non Mount Caucasus. The French philosopher, rejecting the supernatural\nelements of the tale, makes up his mind that Prometheus was a prince\nof a scientific bent, and that he established his observatory on the\nfrosty Caucasus. But, even admitting this, why did Prometheus\ngive the stars animal names? Goguet easily explains this by a\nhypothetical account of the manners of primitive men. 'The\nearliest peoples,' he says, 'must have used writing for\npurposes of astronomical science. They would be content to design\nthe constellations of which they wished to speak by the hieroglyphical\nsymbols of their names; hence the constellations have insensibly taken\nthe names of the chief symbols.' Thus, a drawing of a bear\nor a swan was the hieroglyphic of the name of a star, or group of stars.\nBut whence came the name which was represented by the hieroglyphic?\nThat is precisely what our author forgets to tell us. But he remarks\nthat the meaning of the hieroglyphic came to be forgotten, and 'the\nsymbols gave rise to all the ridiculous tales about the heavenly signs.'\nThis explanation is attained by the process of reasoning in a vicious\ncircle from hypothetical premises ascertained to be false. All\nthe known savages of the world, even those which have scarcely the elements\nof picture-writing, call the constellations by the names of men and\nanimals, and all tell 'ridiculous tales' to account for\nthe names.\n\nAs the star-stories told by the Greeks, the ancient Egyptians, and\nother civilised people of the old world, exactly correspond in character,\nand sometimes even in incident, with the star-stories of modern savages,\nwe have the choice of three hypotheses to explain this curious coincidence.\nPerhaps the star-stories, about nymphs changed into bears, and bears\nchanged into stars, were invented by the civilised races of old, and\ngradually found their way amongst people like the Eskimo, and the Australians,\nand Bushmen. Or it may be insisted that the ancestors of Australians,\nEskimo, and Bushmen were once civilised, like the Greeks and Egyptians,\nand invented star-stories, still remembered by their degenerate descendants.\nThese are the two forms of the explanation which will be advanced by\npersons who believe that the star-stories were originally the fruit\nof the civilised imagination. The third theory would be, that\nthe 'ridiculous tales' about the stars were originally the\nwork of the savage imagination, and that the Greeks, Chald\u00e6ans,\nand Egyptians, when they became civilised, retained the old myths that\ntheir ancestors had invented when they were savages. In favour\nof this theory it may be said, briefly, that there is no proof that\nthe fathers of Australians, Eskimo, and Bushmen had ever been civilised,\nwhile there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the fathers\nof the Greeks had once been savages.\nAnd, if we incline to the theory that the star-myths are the creation of savage fancy, we at once learn why they are, in\nall parts of the world, so much alike. Just as the flint and bone\nweapons of rude races resemble each other much more than they resemble\nthe metal weapons and the artillery of advanced peoples, so the mental\nproducts, the fairy tales, and myths of rude races have everywhere a\nstrong family resemblance. They are produced by men in similar mental\nconditions of ignorance, curiosity, and credulous fancy, and they are\nintended to supply the same needs, partly of amusing narrative, partly of\ncrude explanation of familiar phenomena.\n\nNow it is time to prove the truth of our assertion that the star-stories\nof savage and of civilised races closely resemble each other.\nLet us begin with that well-known group the Pleiades. The peculiarity of the Pleiades is that the group consists of seven\nstars, of which one is so dim that it seems entirely to disappear, and\nmany persons can only detect its presence through a telescope.\nThe Greeks had a myth to account for the vanishing of the lost Pleiad.\nThe tale is given in the 'Catasterismoi' (stories of metamorphoses\ninto stars) attributed to Eratosthenes. This work was probably\nwritten after our era; but the author derived his information from older\ntreatises now lost. According to the Greek myth, then, the seven\nstars of the Pleiad were seven maidens, daughters of the Giant Atlas.\nSix of them had gods for lovers; Poseidon admired two of them, Zeus\nthree, and Ares one; but the seventh had only an earthly wooer, and\nwhen all of them were changed into stars, the maiden with the mortal\nlover hid her light for shame.\n\nNow let us compare the Australian story. According to Mr. Dawson\n('Australian Aborigines'), a writer who understands the\nnatives well, 'their knowledge of the heavenly bodies greatly\nexceeds that of most white people,' and 'is taught by men\nselected for their intelligence and information. The knowledge\nis important to the aborigines on their night journeys;' so we\nmay be sure that the natives are careful observers of the heavens, and\nare likely to be conservative of their astronomical myths. The\n'Lost Pleiad' has not escaped them, and this is how they\naccount for her disappearance. The Pirt Kopan noot tribe have a tradition that the Pleiades were a queen and her six attendants. Long ago the Crow (our Canopus) fell in love with the queen, who refused to be his wife. The Crow found that\nthe queen and her six maidens, like other Australian gins, were\nin the habit of hunting for white edible grubs in the bark of trees.\nThe Crow at once changed himself into a grub (just as Jupiter and Indra\nused to change into swans, horses, ants, or what not) and hid in the\nbark of a tree. The six maidens sought to pick him out with their\nwooden hooks, but he broke the points of all the hooks. Then came\nthe queen, with her pretty bone hook; he let himself be drawn out, took\nthe shape of a giant, and ran away with her. Ever since there\nhave only been six stars, the six maidens, in the Pleiad.\nThis story is well known, by the strictest inquiry, to be current among\nthe blacks of the West District and in South Australia.\n\nMr. Tylor, whose opinion is entitled to the highest respect, thinks\nthat this may be a European myth, told by some settler to a black in\nthe Greek form, and then spread about among the natives. He complains\nthat the story of the loss of the brightest star does not fit\nthe facts of the case.\n\nWe do not know, and how can the Australians know, that the lost star\nwas once the brightest? It appears to me that the Australians,\nremarking the disappearances of a star, might very naturally suppose\nthat the Crow had selected for his wife that one which had been\nthe most brilliant of the cluster. Besides, the wide distribution\nof the tale among the natives, and the very great change in the nature\nof the incidents, seem to point to a native origin. Though the\nmain conception\u2014the loss of one out of seven maidens\u2014is\nidentical in Greek and in Murri, the manner of the disappearance\nis eminently Hellenic in the one case, eminently savage in the other.\nHowever this may be, nothing of course is proved by a single example.\nLet us next examine the stars Castor and Pollux.\nBoth in Greece and in Australia these are said once to have been two\nyoung men. In the 'Catasterismoi,' already spoken\nof, we read: 'The Twins, or Dioscouroi.\u2014They\nwere nurtured in Laced\u00e6mon, and were famous for their brotherly\nlove, wherefore, Zeus, desiring to make their memory immortal, placed\nthem both among the stars.' In Australia, according to Mr.\nBrough Smyth ('Aborigines of Victoria'), Turree (Castor) and Wanjel (Pollux) are two young men who pursue Purra and kill him at the commencement of the great heat. Coonar toorung (the mirage) is the smoke of the fire by which they roast\nhim. In Greece it was not Castor and Pollux, but Orion\nwho was the great hunter placed among the stars. Among the Bushmen\nof South Africa, Castor and Pollux are not young men,\nbut young women, the wives of the Eland, the great native antelope.\nIn Greek star-stories the Great Bear keeps watch, Homer says,\non the hunter Orion for fear of a sudden attack. But how did the\nBear get its name in Greece? According to Hesiod, the oldest Greek\npoet after Homer, the Bear was once a lady, daughter of Lycaon, King\nof Arcadia. She was a nymph of the train of chaste Artemis, but\nyielded to the love of Zeus, and became the ancestress of all the Arcadians\n(that is, Bear-folk). In her bestial form she was just\nabout to be slain by her own son when Zeus rescued her by raising her\nto the stars. Here we must notice first, that the Arcadians, like\nAustralians, Red Indians, Bushmen, and many other wild races, and like\nthe Bedouins, believed themselves to be descended from an animal.\nThat the early Egyptians did the same is not improbable; for names of\nanimals are found among the ancestors in the very oldest genealogical\npapyrus, as in the genealogies of the old English kings. Next the Arcadians\ntransferred the ancestral bear to the heavens, and, in doing this, they\nresembled the Peruvians, of whom Acosta says: 'They adored the\nstar Urchuchilly, feigning it to be a Ram, and worshipped two others, and say that one of them is a sheep, and the other a lamb . . . others worshipped the star called the Tiger. They were of opinion that there was not any beast or bird upon the earth,\nwhose shape or image did not shine in the heavens.'\n\nBut to return to our bears. The Australians have, properly speaking, no\nbears, though the animal called the native bear is looked up to by the\naborigines with superstitious regard. But among the North American\nIndians, as the old missionaries Lafitau and Charlevoix observed, 'the\nfour stars in front of our constellation are a bear; those in the tail\nare hunters who pursue him; the small star apart is the pot in which they\nmean to cook him.'\n\nIt may be held that the Red Men derived their bear from the European\nsettlers. But, as we have seen, an exact knowledge of the stars has\nalways been useful if not essential to savages; and we venture to doubt\nwhether they would confuse their nomenclature and sacred traditions by\nborrowing terms from trappers and squatters. But, if this is improbable,\nit seems almost impossible that all savage races should have borrowed\ntheir whole conception of the heavenly bodies from the myths of Greece.\nIt is thus that Egede, a missionary of the last century, describes the\nEskimo philosophy of the stars: 'The notions that the Greenlanders have\nas to the origin of the heavenly lights\u2014as sun, moon, and stars\u2014are\nvery nonsensical; in that they pretend they have formerly been as many of\ntheir own ancestors, who, on different accounts, were lifted up to\nheaven, and became such glorious celestial bodies.' Again, he writes:\n'Their notions about the stars are that some of them have been men, and\nothers different sorts, of animals and fishes.' But every reader of Ovid\nknows that this was the very mythical theory of the Greeks and Romans.\nThe Egyptians, again, worshipped Osiris, Isis, and the rest as\nancestors, and there are even modern scholars, like Mr. Loftie in his\n'Essay of Scarabs,' who hold Osiris to have been originally a real\nhistorical person. But the Egyptian priests who showed Plutarch the\ngrave of Osiris, showed him, too, the stars into which Osiris, Isis, and\nHorus had been metamorphosed. Here, then, we have Greeks, Egyptians, and\nEskimo, all agreed about the origin of the heavenly lights, all of\nopinion that 'they have formerly been as many of their own ancestors.'\n\nThe Australian general theory is: 'Of the good men and women, after the\ndeluge, Pundjel (a kind of Zeus, or rather a sort of Prometheus of\nAustralian mythology) made stars. Sorcerers (Biraark) can tell which\nstars were once good men and women.' Here the sorcerers have the same\nknowledge as the Egyptian priests. Again, just as among the Arcadians,\n'the progenitors of the existing tribes, whether birds, or beasts, or\nmen, were set in the sky, and made to shine as stars.'\n\nWe have already given some Australian examples in the stories of\nthe Pleiades, and of Castor and Pollux. We may add the case of the Eagle. In Greece the Eagle\nwas the bird of Zeus, who carried off Ganymede to be the cup-bearer\nof Olympus. Among the Australians this same constellation is called\nTotyarguil; he was a man who, when bathing, was killed by a fabulous animal, a kind of kelpie; as Orion, in Greece, was killed by the Scorpion.\nLike Orion, he was placed among the stars. The Australians have\na constellation named Eagle, but he is our Sirius, or Dog-star.\n\nThe Indians of the Amazon are in one tale with the Australians and\nEskimo. 'Dr. Silva de Coutinho informs me,' says Professor\nHartt,\n'that\nthe Indians of the Amazonas not only give names to many of the heavenly\nbodies, but also tell stories about them. The two stars that form\nthe shoulders of Orion are said to be an old man and a boy in a canoe,\nchasing a peixe boi, by which name is designated a dark spot\nin the sky near the above constellation.' The Indians also\nknow monkey-stars, crane-stars, and palm-tree stars.\n\nThe Bushmen, almost the lowest tribe of South Africa, have the same star-lore and much the same myths as the Greeks, Australians, Egyptians, and\nEskimo. According to Dr. Bleek, 'stars, and even the sun and moon, were\nonce mortals on earth, or even animals or inorganic substances, which\nhappened to get translated to the skies. The sun was once a man, whose\narm-pit radiated a limited amount of light round his house. Some\nchildren threw him into the sky, and there he shines.' The Homeric hymn\nto Helios, in the same way, as Mr. Max M\u00fcller observes, 'looks on the sun\nas a half-god, almost a hero, who had once lived on earth.' The pointers\nof the Southern Cross were 'two men who were lions,' just as Callisto, in\nArcadia, was a woman who was a bear. It is not at all rare in those\nqueer philosophies, as in that of the Scandinavians, to find that the sun\nor moon has been a man or woman. In Australian fable the moon was a man,\nthe sun a woman of indifferent character, who appears at dawn in a coat\nof red kangaroo skins, the present of an admirer. In an old Mexican text\nthe moon was a man, across whose face a god threw a rabbit, thus making\nthe marks in the moon.\n\nMany separate races seem to recognise the figure of a hare, where we see\n'the Man in the Moon.' In a Buddhist legend, an exemplary and altruistic\nhare was translated to the moon. 'To the common people in India the\nspots on the moon look like a hare, and Chandras, the god of the moon,\ncarries a hare: hence the moon is called sasin or sasanka, hare-mark. The Mongolians also see in these shadows the figure of a hare.' Among\nthe Eskimo, the moon is a girl, who always flees from her cruel brother,\nthe sun, because he disfigured her face. Elsewhere the sun is the girl,\nbeloved by her own brother, the moon; she blackens her face to avert his\naffection. On the Rio Branco, and among the Tomunda, the moon is a girl\nwho loved her brother and visited him in the dark. He detected her\nwicked passion by drawing his blackened hand over her face. The marks\nbetrayed her, and, as the spots on the moon, remain to this day.\n\nAmong the New Zealanders and North American Indians the sun is a great\nbeast, whom the hunters trapped and thrashed with cudgels. His blood is\nused in some New Zealand incantations; and, according to an Egyptian\nmyth, was kneaded into clay at the making of man. But there is no end to\nsimilar sun-myths, in all of which the sun is regarded as a man, or even\nas a beast.\n\nTo return to the stars\u2014\n\nThe Red Indians, as Schoolcraft says, 'hold many of the planets\nto be transformed adventurers.' The Iowas 'believed\nstars to be a sort of living creatures.' One of them came\ndown and talked to a hunter, and showed him where to find game.\nThe Gallinomeros of Central California, according to Mr. Bancroft, believe\nthat the sun and moon were made and lighted up by the Hawk and the Coyote,\nwho one day flew into each other's faces in the dark, and were\ndetermined to prevent such accidents in the future. But the very\noddest example of the survival of the notion that the stars are men\nor women is found in the 'Pax' of Aristophanes. Tryg\u00e6us\nin that comedy has just made an expedition to heaven. A slave\nmeets him, and asks him, 'Is not the story true, then, that we\nbecome stars when we die?' The answer is 'Certainly;'\nand Tryg\u00e6us points out the star into which Ios of Chios has just\nbeen metamorphosed. Aristophanes is making fun of some popular\nGreek superstition. But that very superstition meets us in New\nZealand. 'Heroes,' says Mr. Taylor, 'were thought\nto become stars of greater or less brightness, according to the number\nof their victims slain in fight.' The Aryan race is seldom\nfar behind, when there are ludicrous notions to be credited or savage\ntales to be told. We have seen that Aristophanes, in Greece, knew\nthe Eskimo doctrine that stars are souls of the dead. The Persians\nhad the same belief, 'all the unnumbered stars were reckoned ghosts of men.' The German\nfolklore clings to the same belief, 'Stars are souls; when a child dies\nGod makes a new star.' Kaegi quotes the same idea from the Veda,\nand from the Satapatha Brahmana the thoroughly Australian notion that\n'good men become stars.' For a truly savage conception, it would be\ndifficult, in South Africa or on the Amazons, to beat the following story\nfrom the 'Aitareya Brahmana' (iii. 33.) Pragapati, the Master of Life,\nconceived an incestuous passion for his own daughter. Like Zeus, and\nIndra, and the Australian wooer in the Pleiad tale, he concealed himself\nunder the shape of a beast, a roebuck, and approached his own daughter,\nwho had assumed the form of a doe. The gods, in anger at the awful\ncrime, made a monster to punish Pragapati. The monster sent an arrow\nthrough the god's body; he sprang into heaven, and, like the Arcadian\nbear, this Aryan roebuck became a constellation. He is among the stars\nof Orion, and his punisher, also now a star, is, like the Greek Orion, a\nhunter. The daughter of Pragapati, the doe, became another\nconstellation, and the avenging arrow is also a set of stars in the sky.\nWhat follows, about the origin of the gods called Adityas, is really too\nsavage to be quoted by a chaste mythologist.\n\nIt would be easy to multiply examples of this stage of thought among\nAryans and savages. But we have probably brought forward enough\nfor our purpose, and have expressly chosen instances from the most widely\nseparated peoples. These instances, it will perhaps be admitted,\nsuggest, if they do not prove, that the Greeks had received from tradition\nprecisely the same sort of legends about the heavenly bodies as are\ncurrent among Eskimo and Bushmen, New Zealanders and Iowas. As\nmuch, indeed, might be inferred from our own astronomical nomenclature.\nWe now give to newly discovered stars names derived from distinguished\npeople, as Georgium Sidus, or Herschel; or, again, merely technical appellatives, as Alpha, Beta, and the rest.\nWe should never think when 'some new planet swims into our ken'\nof calling it Kangaroo, or Rabbit, or after the name of some hero of romance, as Rob Roy, or Count Fosco.\nBut the names of stars which we inherit from Greek mythology\u2014the\nBear, the Pleiads, Castor and Pollux, and\nso forth\u2014are such as no people in our mental condition would originally\nthink of bestowing. When Callimachus and the courtly astronomers\nof Alexandria pretended that the golden locks of Berenice were raised\nto the heavens, that was a mere piece of flattery constructed on the\ninherited model of legends about the crown (Corona) of Ariadne.\nIt seems evident enough that the older Greek names of stars are derived\nfrom a time when the ancestors of the Greeks were in the mental and\nimaginative condition of Iowas, Kanekas, Bushmen, Murri, and New Zealanders.\nAll these, and all other savage peoples, believe in a kind of equality\nand intercommunion among all things animate and inanimate. Stones\nare supposed in the Pacific Islands to be male and female and to propagate\ntheir species. Animals are believed to have human or superhuman\nintelligence, and speech, if they choose to exercise the gift.\nStars are just on the same footing, and their movements are explained\nby the same ready system of universal anthropomorphism. Stars,\nfishes, gods, heroes, men, trees, clouds, and animals, all play their\nequal part in the confused dramas of savage thought and savage mythology.\nEven in practical life the change of a sorcerer into an animal is accepted\nas a familiar phenomenon, and the power of soaring among the stars is\none on which the Australian Biraark, or the Eskimo Shaman, most plumes\nhimself. It is not wonderful that things which are held possible\nin daily practice should be frequent features of mythology. Hence\nthe ready invention and belief of star-legends, which in their turn\nfix the names of the heavenly bodies. Nothing more, except the\nextreme tenacity of tradition and the inconvenience of changing a widely\naccepted name, is needed to account for the human and animal names of\nthe stars. The Greeks received from the dateless past of savage\nintellect the myths, and the names of the constellations, and we have\ntaken them, without inquiry, from the Greeks. Thus it happens\nthat our celestial globes are just as queer menageries as any globes\ncould be that were illustrated by Australians or American Indians, by\nBushmen or Peruvian aborigines, or Eskimo. It was savages, we\nmay be tolerably certain, who first handed to science the names of the\nconstellations, and provided Greece with the raw material of her astronomical\nmyths\u2014as Bacon prettily says, that we listen to the harsh ideas\nof earlier peoples 'blown softly through the flutes of the Grecians.'\n\nThis position has been disputed by Mr. Brown, in a work rather komically\ncalled 'The Law of Kosmic Order.' Mr. Brown's\ntheory is that the early Accadians named the zodiacal signs after certain\nmyths and festivals connected with the months. Thus the crab is\na figure of 'the darkness power' which seized the Akkadian\nsolar hero, Dumuzi, and 'which is constantly represented in monstrous\nand drakontic form.' The bull, again, is connected with\nnight and darkness, 'in relation to the horned moon,' and\nis, for other reasons, 'a nocturnal potency.' Few\nstars, to tell the truth, are diurnal potencies. Mr. Brown's\nexplanations appear to me far-fetched and unconvincing. But, granting\nthat the zodiacal signs reached Greece from Chald\u00e6a, Mr. Brown\nwill hardly maintain that Australians, Melanesians, Iowas, Amazon Indians,\nEskimo, and the rest, borrowed their human and animal stars from 'Akkadia.'\nThe belief in animal and human stars is practically universal among\nsavages who have not attained the 'Akkadian' degree of culture.\nThe belief, as Mr. Tylor has shown, is a natural result of savage ideas. We therefore infer\nthat the 'Akkadians,' too, probably fell back for star-names on what they\ninherited from the savage past. If the Greeks borrowed certain\nstar-names from the Akkadians, they also, like the Aryans of India,\nretained plenty of savage star-myths of their own, fables derived from\nthe earliest astronomical guesses of early thought.\n\nThe first moment in astronomical science arrives when the savage,\nlooking at a star, says, like the child in the nursery poem, 'How\nI wonder what you are!' The next moment comes when the savage\nhas made his first rough practical observations of the movements of\nthe heavenly body. His third step is to explain these to himself.\nNow science cannot offer any but a fanciful explanation beyond the sphere\nof experience. The experience of the savage is limited to the\nnarrow world of his tribe, and of the beasts, birds, and fishes of his\ndistrict. His philosophy, therefore, accounts for all phenomena\non the supposition that the laws of the animate nature he observes are\nworking everywhere. But his observations, misguided by his crude\nmagical superstitions, have led him to believe in a state of equality\nand kinship between men and animals, and even inorganic things.\nHe often worships the very beasts he slays; he addresses them as if\nthey understood him; he believes himself to be descended from the animals,\nand of their kindred. These confused ideas he applies to the stars,\nand recognises in them men like himself, or beasts like those with which\nhe conceives himself to be in such close human relations. There\nis scarcely a bird or beast but the Red Indian or the Australian will\nexplain its peculiarities by a myth, like a page from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses.'\nIt was once a man or a woman, and has been changed to bird or beast\nby a god or a magician. Men, again, have originally been beasts,\nin his philosophy, and are descended from wolves, frogs or serpents,\nor monkeys. The heavenly bodies are traced to precisely the same\nsort of origin; and hence, we conclude, come their strange animal names,\nand the strange myths about them which appear in all ancient poetry.\nThese names, in turn, have curiously affected human beliefs. Astrology\nis based on the opinion that a man's character and fate are determined\nby the stars under which he is born. And the nature of these stars\nis deduced from their names, so that the bear should have been found\nin the horoscope of Dr. Johnson. When Giordano Bruno wrote his\nsatire against religion, the famous 'Spaccio della bestia trionfante,'\nhe proposed to banish not only the gods but the beasts from heaven.\nHe would call the stars, not the Bear, or the Swan, or the Pleiads, but Truth, Mercy, Justice, and so forth, that men\nmight be born, not under bestial, but moral influences. But the\nbeasts have had too long possession of the stars to be easily dislodged,\nand the tenure of the Bear and the Swan will probably\nlast as long as there is a science of Astronomy. Their names are\nnot likely again to delude a philosopher into the opinion of Aristotle\nthat the stars are animated.\n\nThis argument had been worked out to the writer's satisfaction\nwhen he chanced to light on Mr. Max M\u00fcller's explanation\nof the name of the Great Bear. We have explained that name\nas only one out of countless similar appellations which men of every\nrace give to the stars. These names, again, we have accounted\nfor as the result of savage philosophy, which takes no great distinction\nbetween man and the things in the world, and looks on stars, beasts,\nbirds, fishes, flowers, and trees as men and women in disguise.\nMr. M\u00fcller's theory is based on philological considerations.\nHe thinks that the name of the Great Bear is the result of a\nmistake as to the meaning of words. There was in Sanskrit, he\nsays, a root ark, or arch, meaning 'to be bright.' The stars are called riksha, that is, bright ones, in the Veda.\n'The constellations here called the Rikshas, in the sense of the\n\u201cbright ones,\u201d would be homonymous in Sanskrit with the\nBears. Remember also that, apparently without rhyme or reason,\nthe same constellation is called by Greeks and Romans the Bear. . .\n. There is not the shadow of a likeness with a bear. You\nwill now perceive the influence of words on thought, or the spontaneous\ngrowth of mythology. The name Riksha was applied to the\nbear in the sense of the bright fuscous animal, and in that sense it\nbecame most popular in the later Sanskrit, and in Greek and Latin.\nThe same name, \u201cin the sense of the bright ones,\u201d had been\napplied by the Vedic poets to the stars in general, and more particularly\nto that constellation which in the northern parts of India was the most\nprominent. The etymological meaning, \u201cthe bright stars,\u201d\nwas forgotten; the popular meaning of Riksha (bear) was known to everyone.\nAnd thus it happened that, when the Greeks had left their central home\nand settled in Europe, they retained the name of Arktos for the same\nunchanging stars; but, not knowing why those stars had originally received\nthat name, they ceased to speak of them as arkto\u00ed, or\nmany bears, and spoke of them as the Bear.'\n\nThis is a very good example of the philological way of explaining\na myth. If once we admit that ark, or arch, in the\nsense of 'bright' and of 'bear,' existed, not\nonly in Sanskrit, but in the undivided Aryan tongue, and that the name\nRiksha, bear, 'became in that sense most popular in Greek and\nLatin,' this theory seems more than plausible. But the explanation\ndoes not look so well if we examine, not only the Aryan, but all the\nknown myths and names of the Bear and the other stars. Professor\nSayce, a distinguished philologist, says we may not compare non-Aryan\nwith Aryan myths. We have ventured to do so, however, in this\npaper, and have shown that the most widely severed races give the stars\nanimal names, of which the Bear is one example. Now, if\nthe philologists wish to persuade us that it was decaying and half-forgotten\nlanguage which caused men to give the names of animals to the stars,\nthey must prove their case on an immense collection of instances\u2014on\nIowa, Kaneka, Murri, Maori, Brazilian, Peruvian, Mexican, Egyptian,\nEskimo, instances. It would be the most amazing coincidence in\nthe world if forgetfulness of the meaning of their own speech compelled\ntribes of every tongue and race to recognise men and beasts, cranes,\ncockatoos, serpents, monkeys, bears, and so forth, in the heavens.\nHow came the misunderstood words always to be misunderstood in the same\nway? Does the philological explanation account for the enormous\nmajority of the phenomena? If it fails, we may at least doubt\nwhether it solves the one isolated case of the Great Bear among the\nGreeks and Romans. It must be observed that the philological explanation\nof Mr. M\u00fcller does not clear up the Arcadian story of their own\ndescent from a she-bear who is now a star. Yet similar stories\nof the descent of tribes from animals are so widespread that it would\nbe difficult to name the race or the quarter of the globe where they\nare not found. Are they all derived from misunderstood words meaning\n'bright'? These considerations appear to be a strong\nargument for comparing not only Aryan, but all attainable myths.\nWe shall often find, if we take a wide view, that the philological explanation\nwhich seemed plausible in a single case is hopelessly narrow when applied\nto a large collection of parallel cases in languages of various families.\n\nFinally, in dealing with star myths, we adhere to the hypothesis of Mr.\nTylor: 'From savagery up to civilisation,' Akkadian, Greek, or English,\n'there may be traced in the mythology of the stars a course of thought,\nchanged, indeed, in application, yet never broken in its evident\nconnection from first to last. The savage sees individual stars as\nanimate beings, or combines star-groups into living celestial creatures,\nor limbs of them, or objects connected with them; while at the other\nextremity of the scale of civilisation the modern astronomer keeps up\njust such ancient fancies, turning them to account in useful survival, as\na means of mapping out the celestial globe.'\n\nFootnotes","title":"Custom and Myth/Star Myths","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":5961}