{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_The_Method_of_Folklore/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_The_Method_of_Folklore","id":"wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_The_Method_of_Folklore","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/The_Method_of_Folklore","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"THE METHOD OF FOLKLORE.\n\nAfter the heavy rain of a thunderstorm has washed the soil, it sometimes\nhappens that a child, or a rustic, finds a wedge-shaped piece of metal\nor a few triangular flints in a field or near a road. There was\nno such piece of metal, there were no such flints, lying there yesterday,\nand the finder is puzzled about the origin of the objects on which he\nhas lighted. He carries them home, and the village wisdom determines\nthat the wedge-shaped piece of metal is a \u2018thunderbolt,\u2019\nor that the bits of flint are \u2018elf-shots,\u2019 the heads of\nfairy arrows. Such things are still treasured in remote nooks\nof England, and the \u2018thunderbolt\u2019 is applied to cure certain\nmaladies by its touch.\n\nAs for the fairy arrows, we know that even in ancient Etruria they\nwere looked on as magical, for we sometimes see their points set, as\namulets, in the gold of Etruscan necklaces. In Perugia the arrowheads\nare still sold as charms. All educated people, of course, have\nlong been aware that the metal wedge is a celt, or ancient bronze axe-head,\nand that it was not fairies, but the forgotten peoples of this island\nwho used the arrows with the tips of flint. Thunder is only so\nfar connected with them that the heavy rains loosen the surface soil,\nand lay bare its long hidden secrets.\n\nThere is a science, Arch\u00e6ology, which collects and compares\nthe material relics of old races, the axes and arrow-heads. There\nis a form of study, Folklore, which collects and compares the similar\nbut immaterial relics of old races, the surviving superstitions and\nstories, the ideas which are in our time but not of it. Properly\nspeaking, folklore is only concerned with the legends, customs, beliefs,\nof the Folk, of the people, of the classes which have least been altered\nby education, which have shared least in progress. But the student\nof folklore soon finds that these unprogressive classes retain many\nof the beliefs and ways of savages, just as the Hebridean people use\nspindle-whorls of stone, and bake clay pots without the aid of the wheel,\nlike modern South Sea Islanders, or like their own prehistoric ancestors.\nThe student of folklore is thus led to examine the usages, myths, and ideas\nof savages, which are still retained, in rude enough shape, by the European\npeasantry. Lastly, he observes that a few similar customs and\nideas survive in the most conservative elements of the life of educated\npeoples, in ritual, ceremonial, and religious traditions and myths.\nThough such remains are rare in England, we may note the custom of leading\nthe dead soldier\u2019s horse behind his master to the grave, a relic\nof days when the horse would have been sacrificed.\nWe may observe the persistence of the ceremony by which the monarch,\nat his coronation, takes his seat on the sacred stone of Scone, probably\nan ancient fetich stone. Not to speak, here, of our own religious\ntraditions, the old vein of savage rite and belief is found very near\nthe surface of ancient Greek religion. It needs but some stress\nof circumstance, something answering to the storm shower that reveals\nthe flint arrow-heads, to bring savage ritual to the surface of classical\nreligion. In sore need, a human victim was only too likely to\nbe demanded; while a feast-day, or a mystery, set the Greeks dancing\nserpent-dances or bear-dances like Red Indians, or swimming with sacred\npigs, or leaping about in imitation of wolves, or holding a dog-feast,\nand offering dog\u2019s flesh to the gods.\nThus the student of folklore soon finds that he must enlarge his field,\nand examine, not only popular European story and practice, but savage\nways and ideas, and the myths and usages of the educated classes in\ncivilised races. In this extended sense the term \u2018folklore\u2019\nwill frequently be used in the following essays. The idea of the\nwriter is that mythology cannot fruitfully be studied apart from folklore,\nwhile some knowledge of anthropology is required in both sciences.\n\nThe science of Folklore, if we may call it a science, finds everywhere,\nclose to the surface of civilised life, the remains of ideas as old\nas the stone elf-shots, older than the celt of bronze. In proverbs\nand riddles, and nursery tales and superstitions, we detect the relics\nof a stage of thought, which is dying out in Europe, but which still\nexists in many parts of the world. Now, just as the flint arrow-heads\nare scattered everywhere, in all the continents and isles, and everywhere\nare much alike, and bear no very definite marks of the special influence\nof race, so it is with the habits and legends investigated by the student\nof folklore. The stone arrow-head buried in a Scottish cairn is\nlike those which were interred with Algonquin chiefs. The flints\nfound in Egyptian soil, or beside the tumulus on the plain of Marathon,\nnearly resemble the stones which tip the reed arrow of the modern Samoyed.\nPerhaps only a skilled experience could discern, in a heap of such arrow-heads,\nthe specimens which are found in America or Africa from those which\nare unearthed in Europe. Even in the products of more advanced\nindustry, we see early pottery, for example, so closely alike everywhere\nthat, in the British Museum, Mexican vases have, ere now, been mixed\nup on the same shelf with archaic vessels from Greece. In the\nsame way, if a superstition or a riddle were offered to a student of\nfolklore, he would have much difficulty in guessing its provenance,\nand naming the race from which it was brought. Suppose you tell\na folklorist that, in a certain country, when anyone sneezes, people\nsay \u2018Good luck to you,\u2019 the student cannot say \u00e0 priori what country you refer to, what race you have in your thoughts.\nIt may be Florida, as Florida was when first discovered; it may be Zululand,\nor West Africa, or ancient Rome, or Homeric Greece, or Palestine.\nIn all these, and many other regions, the sneeze was welcomed as an\nauspicious omen. The little superstition is as widely distributed\nas the flint arrow-heads. Just as the object and use of the arrow-heads\nbecame intelligible when we found similar weapons in actual use among\nsavages, so the salutation to the sneezer becomes intelligible when\nwe learn that the savage has a good reason for it. He thinks the\nsneeze expels an evil spirit. Proverbs, again, and riddles are\nas universally scattered, and the Wolufs puzzle over the same devinettes\nas the Scotch schoolboy or the Breton peasant. Thus, for instance,\nthe Wolufs of Senegal ask each other, \u2018What flies for ever, and\nrests never?\u2019\u2014Answer, \u2018The Wind.\u2019 \u2018Who\nare the comrades that always fight, and never hurt each other?\u2019\u2014\u2018The\nTeeth.\u2019 In France, as we read in the \u2018Recueil de Calembours,\u2019\nthe people ask, \u2018What runs faster than a horse, crosses water,\nand is not wet?\u2019\u2014Answer, \u2018The Sun.\u2019 The\nSamoans put the riddle, \u2018A man who stands between two ravenous\nfishes?\u2019\u2014Answer, \u2018The tongue between the teeth.\u2019\nAgain, \u2018There are twenty brothers, each with a hat on his head?\u2019\u2014Answer,\n\u2018Fingers and toes, with nails for hats.\u2019 This is like\nthe French \u2018un p\u00e8re a douze fils?\u2019\u2014\u2018l\u2019an.\u2019\nA comparison of M. Rolland\u2019s \u2018Devinettes\u2019 with the\nWoluf conundrums of Boilat, the Samoan examples in Turner\u2019s\u2019\nSamoa,\u2019 and the Scotch enigmas collected by Chambers, will show\nthe identity of peasant and savage humour.\n\nA few examples, less generally known, may be given to prove that\nthe beliefs of folklore are not peculiar to any one race or stock of\nmen. The first case is remarkable: it occurs in Mexico and Ceylon\u2014nor\nare we aware that it is found elsewhere. In Macmillan\u2019s Magazine\nis published a paper by Mrs. Edwards, called \u2018The Mystery of the\nPezazi.\u2019 The events described in this narrative occurred\non August 28, 1876, in a bungalow some thirty miles from Badiella.\nThe narrator occupied a new house on an estate called Allagalla.\nHer native servants soon asserted that the place was haunted by a Pezazi.\nThe English visitors saw and heard nothing extraordinary till a certain\nnight: an abridged account of what happened then may be given in the\nwords of Mrs. Edwards:\u2014\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Wrapped in dreams, I lay on the night in question tranquilly sleeping,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0but gradually roused to a perception that discordant sounds disturbed\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the serenity of my slumber. Loth to stir, I still dozed on, the\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0sounds, however, becoming, as it seemed, more determined to make\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0themselves heard; and I awoke to the consciousness that they proceeded\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0from a belt of adjacent jungle, and resembled the noise that would be\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0produced by some person felling timber.\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shutting my ears to the disturbance, I made no sign, until, with an\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0expression of impatience, E\u2014- suddenly started up, when I laid a\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0detaining grasp upon his arm, murmuring that there was no need to\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0think of rising at present\u2014it must be quite early, and the kitchen\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0cooly was doubtless cutting fire-wood in good time. E\u2014- responded,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0in a tone of slight contempt, that no one could be cutting fire-wood\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0at that hour, and the sounds were more suggestive of felling jungle;\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and he then inquired how long I had been listening to them. Now\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0thoroughly aroused, I replied that I had heard the sounds for some\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0time, at first confusing them with my dreams, but soon sufficiently\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0awakening to the fact that they were no mere phantoms of my\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0imagination, but a reality. During our conversation the noises became\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0more distinct and loud; blow after blow resounded, as of the axe\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0descending upon the tree, followed by the crash of the falling timber.\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Renewed blows announced the repetition of the operations on another\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0tree, and continued till several were devastated.\n\nIt is unnecessary to tell more of the tale. In spite of minute\nexaminations and close search, no solution of the mystery of the noises,\non this or any other occasion, was ever found. The natives, of\ncourse, attributed the disturbance to the Pezazi, or goblin.\nNo one, perhaps, has asserted that the Aztecs were connected by ties\nof race with the people of Ceylon. Yet, when the Spaniards conquered\nMexico, and when Sahagun (one of the earliest missionaries) collected\nthe legends of the people, he found them, like the Cingalese, strong\nbelievers in the mystic tree-felling. We translate Sahagun\u2019s\naccount of the \u2018midnight axe\u2019:\u2014\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When so any man heareth the sound of strokes in the night, as if one\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0were felling trees, he reckons it an evil boding. And this sound they\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0call youaltepuztli (youalli, night; and tepuztli, copper), which\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0signifies 'the midnight hatchet.' This noise cometh about the time of\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the first sleep, when all men slumber soundly, and the night is still.\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The sound of strokes smitten was first noted by the temple-servants,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0called tlamacazque, at the hour when they go in the night to make\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0their offering of reeds or of boughs of pine, for so was their custom,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and this penance they did on the neighbouring hills, and that when the\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0night was far spent. Whenever they heard such a sound as one makes\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0when he splits wood with an axe (a noise that may be heard afar off),\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0they drew thence an omen of evil, and were afraid, and said that the\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0sounds were part of the witchery of Tezeatlipoca, that often thus\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0dismayeth men who journey in the night. Now, when tidings of these\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0things came to a certain brave man, one exercised in war, he drew\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0near, being guided by the sound, till he came to the very cause of the\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0hubbub. And when he came upon it, with difficulty he caught it, for\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the thing was hard to catch: natheless at last he overtook that which\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ran before him; and behold, it was a man without a heart, and, on\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0either side of the chest, two holes that opened and shut, and so made\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the noise. Then the man put his hand within the breast of the figure\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and grasped the breast and shook it hard, demanding some grace or\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0gift.\n\nAs a rule, the grace demanded was power to make captives in war.\nThe curious coincidence of the \u2018midnight axe,\u2019 occurring\nin lands so remote as Ceylon and Mexico, and the singular attestation\nby an English lady of the actual existence of the disturbance, makes\nthis youaltepuztli one of the quaintest things in the province\nof the folklorist. But, whatever the cause of the noise, or of\nthe beliefs connected with the noise, may be, no one would explain them\nas the result of community of race between Cingalese and Aztecs.\nNor would this explanation be offered to account for the Aztec and English\nbelief that the creaking of furniture is an omen of death in a house.\nObviously, these opinions are the expression of a common state of superstitious\nfancy, not the signs of an original community of origin.\n\nLet us take another piece of folklore. All North-country English\nfolk know the Kernababy. The custom of the \u2018Kernababy\u2019\nis commonly observed in England, or, at all events, in Scotland, where\nthe writer has seen many a kernababy. The last gleanings of the\nlast field are bound up in a rude imitation of the human shape, and\ndressed in some tag-rags of finery. The usage has fallen into\nthe conservative hands of children, but of old \u2018the Maiden\u2019\nwas a regular image of the harvest goddess, which, with a sickle and\nsheaves in her arms, attended by a crowd of reapers, and accompanied\nwith music, followed the last carts home to the farm.\nIt is odd enough that the \u2018Maiden\u2019 should exactly translate\n\u039a\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7, the old Sicilian name of the daughter of\nDemeter. \u2018The Maiden\u2019 has dwindled, then, among us\nto the rudimentary kernababy; but ancient Peru had her own Maiden, her\nHarvest Goddess. Here it is easy to trace the natural idea at\nthe basis of the superstitious practice which links the shores of the\nPacific with our own northern coast. Just as a portion of the\nyule-log and of the Christmas bread were kept all the year through,\na kind of nest-egg of plenteous food and fire, so the kernababy, English\nor Peruvian, is an earnest that corn will not fail all through the year,\ntill next harvest comes. For this reason the kernababy used to\nbe treasured from autumn\u2019s end to autumn\u2019s end, though now\nit commonly disappears very soon after the harvest home. It is\nthus that Acosta describes, in Grimston\u2019s old translation (1604),\nthe Peruvian kernababy and the Peruvian harvest home:\u2014\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This feast is made comming from the chacra or farme unto the house,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0saying certaine songs, and praying that the Mays (maize) may long\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0continue, the which they call Mama cora.\n\nWhat a chance this word offers to etymologists of the old school:\nhow promptly they would recognise, in mama mother\u2014\u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1, and in cora\u2014\u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7, the Mother and\nthe Maiden, the feast of Demeter and Persephone! However, the\ndays of that old school of antiquarianism are numbered. To return\nto the Peruvian harvest home:\u2014\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They take a certaine portion of the most fruitefull of the Mays that\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0growes in their farmes, the which they put in a certaine granary which\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0they do calle Pirua, with certaine ceremonies, watching three nightes;\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0they put this Mays in the richest garments they have, and, being thus\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0wrapped and dressed, they worship this Pirua, and hold it in great\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0veneration, saying it is the Mother of the Mays of their inheritances,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and that by this means the Mays augments and is preserved. In this\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0moneth they make a particular sacrifice, and the witches demand of\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0this Pirua, 'if it hath strength sufficient to continue until the next\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0yeare,' and if it answers 'no,' then they carry this Mays to the farme\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0to burne, whence they brought it, according to every man's power, then\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0they make another Pirua, with the same ceremonies, saying that they\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0renue it, to the ende that the seede of the Mays may not perish.\n\nThe idea that the maize can speak need not surprise us; the Mexican\nheld much the same belief, according to Sahagun:\u2014\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It was thought that if some grains of maize fell on the ground, he who\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0saw them lying there was bound to lift them, wherein, if he failed, he\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0harmed the maize, which plained itself of him to God, saying, 'Lord,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0punish this man, who saw me fallen and raised me not again; punish him\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0with famine, that he may learn not to hold me in dishonour.'\n\nWell, in all this affair of the Scotch kernababy, and the Peruvian\nMama cora, we need no explanation beyond the common simple ideas\nof human nature. We are not obliged to hold, either that the Peruvians\nand Scotch are akin by blood, nor that, at some forgotten time, they\nmet each other, and borrowed each other\u2019s superstitions.\nAgain, when we find Odysseus sacrificing a black sheep to the dead,\nand when we\nread that the Ovahereroes in South Africa also appease with a black\nsheep the spirits of the departed, we do not feel it necessary to hint\nthat the Ovahereroes are of Greek descent, or have borrowed their ritual\nfrom the Greeks. The connection between the colour black, and\nmourning for the dead, is natural and almost universal.\n\nExamples like these might be adduced in any number. We might\nshow how, in magic, negroes of Barbadoes make clay effigies of their\nenemies, and pierce them, just as Greeks did in Plato\u2019s time,\nor the men of Accad in remotest antiquity. We might remark the\nAustralian black putting sharp bits of quartz in the tracks of an enemy\nwho has gone by, that the enemy may be lamed; and we might point to\nBoris Godunof forbidding the same practice among the Russians.\nWe might watch Scotch, and Australians, and Jews, and French, and Aztecs\nspreading dust round the body of a dead man, that the footprints of\nhis ghost, or of other ghosts, may be detected next morning. We\nmight point to a similar device in a modern novel, where the presence\nof a ghost is suspected, as proof of the similar workings of the Australian\nmind and of the mind of Mrs. Riddell. We shall later turn to ancient\nGreece, and show how the serpent-dances, the habit of smearing the body\nwith clay, and other odd rites of the mysteries, were common to Hellenic\nreligion, and to the religion of African, Australian, and American tribes.\n\nNow, with regard to all these strange usages, what is the method\nof folklore? The method is, when an apparently irrational and\nanomalous custom is found in any country, to look for a country where\na similar practice is found, and where the practice is no longer irrational\nand anomalous, but in harmony with the manners and ideas of the people\namong whom it prevails. That Greeks should dance about in their\nmysteries with harmless serpents in their hands looks quite unintelligible.\nWhen a wild tribe of Red Indians does the same thing, as a trial of\ncourage, with real rattlesnakes, we understand the Red Man\u2019s motives,\nand may conjecture that similar motives once existed among the ancestors\nof the Greeks. Our method, then, is to compare the seemingly meaningless\ncustoms or manners of civilised races with the similar customs and manners\nwhich exist among the uncivilised and still retain their meaning.\nIt is not necessary for comparison of this sort that the uncivilised\nand the civilised race should be of the same stock, nor need we prove\nthat they were ever in contact with each other. Similar conditions\nof mind produce similar practices, apart from identity of race, or borrowing\nof ideas and manners.\n\nLet us return to the example of the flint arrowheads. Everywhere\nneolithic arrow-heads are pretty much alike. The cause of the\nresemblance is no more than this, that men, with the same needs, the\nsame materials, and the same rude instruments, everywhere produced the\nsame kind of arrow-head. No hypothesis of interchange of ideas\nnor of community of race is needed to explain the resemblance of form\nin the missiles. Very early pottery in any region is, for the\nsame causes, like very early pottery in any other region. The\nsame sort of similarity was explained by the same resemblances in human\nnature, when we touched on the identity of magical practices and of\nsuperstitious beliefs. This method is fairly well established\nand orthodox when we deal with usages and superstitious beliefs; but\nmay we apply the same method when we deal with myths?\n\nHere a difficulty occurs. Mythologists, as a rule, are averse\nto the method of folklore. They think it scientific to compare\nonly the myths of races which speak languages of the same family, and\nof races which have, in historic times, been actually in proved contact\nwith each other. Thus, most mythologists hold it correct to compare\nGreek, Slavonic, Celtic, and Indian stories, because Greeks, Slavs,\nCelts, and Hindoos all speak languages of the same family. Again,\nthey hold it correct to compare Chald\u00e6an and Greek myths, because\nthe Greeks and the Chald\u00e6ans were brought into contact through\nthe Ph\u0153nicians, and by other intermediaries, such as the Hittites.\nBut the same mythologists will vow that it is unscientific to compare\na Maori or a Hottentot or an Eskimo myth with an Aryan story, because\nMaoris and Eskimo and Hottentots do not speak languages akin to that\nof Greece, nor can we show that the ancestors of Greeks, Maoris, Hottentots,\nand Eskimo were ever in contact with each other in historical times.\n\nNow the peculiarity of the method of folklore is that it will venture\nto compare (with due caution and due examination of evidence) the myths\nof the most widely severed races. Holding that myth is a product\nof the early human fancy, working on the most rudimentary knowledge\nof the outer world, the student of folklore thinks that differences\nof race do not much affect the early mythop\u0153ic faculty.\nHe will not be surprised if Greeks and Australian blacks are in the\nsame tale.\n\nIn each case, he holds, all the circumstances of the case must be\nexamined and considered. For instance, when the Australians tell\na myth about the Pleiades very like the Greek myth of the Pleiades,\nwe must ask a number of questions. Is the Australian version authentic?\nCan the people who told it have heard it from a European? If these\nquestions are answered so as to make it apparent that the Australian\nPleiad myth is of genuine native origin, we need not fly to the conclusion\nthat the Australians are a lost and forlorn branch of the Aryan race.\nTwo other hypotheses present themselves. First, the human species\nis of unknown antiquity. In the moderate allowance of 250,000\nyears, there is time for stories to have wandered all round the world,\nas the Aggry beads of Ashanti have probably crossed the continent from\nEgypt, as the Asiatic jade (if Asiatic it be) has arrived in Swiss lake-dwellings,\nas an African trade-cowry is said to have been found in a Cornish barrow,\nas an Indian Ocean shell has been discovered in a prehistoric bone-cave\nin Poland. This slow filtration of tales is not absolutely out\nof the question. Two causes would especially help to transmit\nmyths. The first is slavery and slave-stealing, the second is\nthe habit of capturing brides from alien stocks, and the law which forbids\nmarriage with a woman of a man\u2019s own family. Slaves and\ncaptured brides would bring their native legends among alien peoples.\n\nBut there is another possible way of explaining the resemblance (granting\nthat it is proved) of the Greek and Australian Pleiad myth. The\nobject of both myths is to account for the grouping and other phenomena\nof the constellations. May not similar explanatory stories have\noccurred to the ancestors of the Australians, and to the ancestors of\nthe Greeks, however remote their home, while they were still in the\nsavage condition? The best way to investigate this point is to\ncollect all known savage and civilised stellar myths, and see what points\nthey have in common. If they all agree in character, though the\nGreek tales are full of grace, while those of the Australians or Brazilians\nare rude enough, we may plausibly account for the similarity of myths,\nas we accounted for the similarity of flint arrow-heads. The myths,\nlike the arrow-heads, resemble each other because they were originally\nframed to meet the same needs out of the same material. In the\ncase of the arrow-heads, the need was for something hard, heavy, and\nsharp\u2014the material was flint. In the case of the myths,\nthe need was to explain certain phenomena\u2014the material (so to\nspeak) was an early state of the human mind, to which all objects seemed\nequally endowed with human personality, and to which no metamorphosis\nappeared impossible.\n\nIn the following essays, then, the myths and customs of various peoples\nwill be compared, even when these peoples talk languages of alien families,\nand have never (as far as history shows us) been in actual contact.\nOur method throughout will be to place the usage, or myth, which is\nunintelligible when found among a civilised race, beside the similar\nmyth which is intelligible enough when it is found among savages.\nA mean term will be found in the folklore preserved by the non-progressive\nclasses in a progressive people. This folklore represents, in\nthe midst of a civilised race, the savage ideas out of which civilisation\nhas been evolved. The conclusion will usually be that the fact\nwhich puzzles us by its presence in civilisation is a relic surviving\nfrom the time when the ancestors of a civilised race were in the state\nof savagery. By this method it is not necessary that \u2018some\nsort of genealogy should be established\u2019 between the Australian\nand the Greek narrators of a similar myth, nor between the Greek and\nAustralian possessors of a similar usage. The hypothesis will\nbe that the myth, or usage, is common to both races, not because of\noriginal community of stock, not because of contact and borrowing, but\nbecause the ancestors of the Greeks passed through the savage intellectual\ncondition in which we find the Australians.\n\nThe questions may be asked, Has race nothing, then, to do with myth?\nDo peoples never consciously borrow myths from each other? The\nanswer is, that race has a great deal to do with the development of\nmyth, if it be race which confers on a people its national genius, and\nits capacity of becoming civilised. If race does this, then race\naffects, in the most powerful manner, the ultimate development of myth.\nNo one is likely to confound a Homeric myth with a myth from the Edda,\nnor either with a myth from a Brahmana, though in all three cases the\nsubstance, the original set of ideas, may be much the same. In\nall three you have anthropomorphic gods, capable of assuming animal\nshapes, tricky, capricious, limited in many undivine ways, yet endowed\nwith magical powers. So far the mythical gods of Homer, of the\nEdda, of any of the Brahmanas, are on a level with each other, and not\nmuch above the gods of savage mythology. This stuff of myth is\nquod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, and\nis the original gift of the savage intellect. But the final treatment,\nthe ultimate literary form of the myth, varies in each race. Homeric\ngods, like Red Indian, Thlinkeet, or Australian gods, can assume the\nshapes of birds. But when we read, in Homer, of the arming of\nAthene, the hunting of Artemis, the vision of golden Aphrodite, the\napparition of Hermes, like a young man when the flower of youth is loveliest,\nthen we recognise the effect of race upon myth, the effect of the Greek\ngenius at work on rude material. Between the Olympians and a Thlinkeet\ngod there is all the difference that exists between the Demeter of Cnidos\nand an image from Easter Island. Again, the Scandinavian gods,\nwhen their tricks are laid aside, when Odin is neither assuming the\nshape of worm nor of raven, have a martial dignity, a noble enduring\nspirit of their own. Race comes out in that, as it does in the\nendless sacrifices, soma drinking, magical austerities, and puerile\nfollies of Vedic and Brahmanic gods, the deities of a people fallen\nearly into its sacerdotage and priestly second childhood. Thus\nrace declares itself in the ultimate literary form and character of\nmythology, while the common savage basis and stuff of myths may be clearly\ndiscerned in the horned, and cannibal, and shape-shifting, and adulterous\ngods of Greece, of India, of the North. They all show their common\nsavage origin, when the poet neglects Freya\u2019s command and tells\nof what the gods did \u2018in the morning of Time.\u2019\n\nAs to borrowing, we have already shown that in prehistoric times\nthere must have been much transmission of myth. The migrations\nof peoples, the traffic in slaves, the law of exogamy, which always\nkeeps bringing alien women into the families\u2014all these things\nfavoured the migration of myth. But the process lies behind history:\nwe can only guess at it, we can seldom trace a popular legend on its\ntravels. In the case of the cultivated ancient peoples, we know\nthat they themselves believed they had borrowed their religions from\neach other. When the Greeks first found the Egyptians practising\nmysteries like their own, they leaped to the conclusion that their own\nrites had been imported from Egypt. We, who know that both Greek\nand Egyptian rites had many points in common with those of Mandans,\nZunis, Bushmen, Australians\u2014people quite unconnected with Egypt\u2014feel\nless confident about the hypothesis of borrowing. We may, indeed,\nregard Adonis, and Zeus Bag\u00e6us, and Melicertes, as importations\nfrom Ph\u0153nicia. In later times, too, the Greeks, and still\nmore the Romans, extended a free hospitality to alien gods and legends,\nto Serapis, Isis, the wilder Dionysiac revels, and so forth. But\nthis habit of borrowing was regarded with disfavour by pious conservatives,\nand was probably, in the width of its hospitality at least, an innovation.\nAs Tiele remarks, we cannot derive Dionysus from the Assyrian Daian nisi, \u2018judge of men,\u2019 a name of the solar god Samas,\nwithout ascertaining that the wine-god exercised judicial functions,\nand was a god of the sun. These derivations, \u2018shocking to\ncommon sense,\u2019 are to be distrusted as part of the intoxication\nof new learning. Some Assyrian scholars actually derive Hades from Bit Edi or Bit Hadi\u2014\u2018though, unluckily,\u2019\nsays Tiele, \u2018there is no such word in the Assyrian text.\u2019\nOn the whole topic Tiele\u2019s essay\ndeserves to be consulted. Granting, then, that elements in the\nworship of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and other gods, may have been imported\nwith the strange \u00c6gypto-Assyrian vases and jewels of the Sidonians,\nwe still find the same basis of rude savage ideas. We may push\nback a god from Greece to Ph\u0153nicia, from Ph\u0153nicia to Accadia,\nbut, at the end of the end, we reach a legend full of myths like those\nwhich Bushmen tell by the camp-fire, Eskimo in their dark huts, and\nAustralians in the shade of the gunyeh\u2014myths cruel, puerile,\nobscene, like the fancies of the savage myth-makers from which they\nsprang.\n\nFootnotes","title":"Custom and Myth/The Method of Folklore","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":5245}