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The Nistinares may be of either sex.
On May 1 the Nistinares hold a kind of religious festival at the house of one of their number. Salutations are exchanged, and presents of food and raki are made to the chief Nistinare. The holy icones of saints are wreathed with flowers, and perfumed with incense. Arrangements are made for purifying the holy wells and springs.
On May 21, the day of St. Helena and St. Constantine, the parish priest says Mass in the grey of dawn. At sunrise all the village meets in festal array; the youngest Nistinare brings from the church the icones of the two saints, and drums are carried behind them in procession. They reach the sacred well in the wood, which the priest blesses. This is parallel to the priestly benediction on 'Fountain Sunday' of the well beneath the Fairy Tree at Domremy, where Jeanne d'Arc was accused of meeting the Good Ladies. {169} Everyone drinks of the water, and there is a sacrifice of rams, ewes, and oxen. A festival follows, as was the use of Domremy in the days of the Maid; then all return to the village. The holy drum, which hangs all the year before St. Helena in the church, is played upon. A mock combat between the icones which have visited the various holy wells is held.
Meanwhile, in each village, pyres of dry wood, amounting to thirty, fifty, or even a hundred cartloads, have been piled up. The wood is set on fire before the procession goes forth to the hallowing of the fountains. On returning, the crowd dances a horo (round dance) about the glowing logs. Heaps of embers (Pineus acervus) are made, and water is thrown on the ground. The musicians play the tune called 'L'Air Nistinar.' A Nistinare breaks through the dance, turns blue, trembles like a leaf, and glares wildly with his eyes. The dance ends, and everybody goes to the best point of view. Then the wildest Nistinare seizes the icon, turns it to the crowd, and with naked feet climbs the pyre of glowing embers. The music plays, and the Nistinare dances to the tune in the fire. If he is so disposed he utters prophecies. He dances till his face resumes its ordinary expression; then he begins to feel the burning; he leaves the pyre, and places his feet in the mud made by the libations of water already described. The second Nistinare then dances in the fire, and so on. The predictions apply to villages and persons; sometimes sinners are denounced, or repairs of the church are demanded in this queer parish council. All through the month of May the Nistinares call out for fire when they hear the Nistinare music playing. They are very temperate men and women. Except in May they do not clamour for fire, and cannot dance in it.
In this remarkable case the alleged gift is hereditary, is of saintly origin, and is only exercised when the Nistinare is excited, and (apparently) entranced by music and the dance, as is the manner also of medicine-men among savages. The rite, with its sacrifices of sheep and oxen, is manifestly of heathen origin. They 'pass through the fire' to St. Constantine, but the observance must be far older than Bulgarian Christianity. The report says nothing as to the state of the feet of the Nistinares after the fire-dance. Medical inspection is desirable, and the photographic camera should be used to catch a picture of the wild scene. My account is abridged from the French version of the Bulgarian report sent by Dr. Schischmanof.
Indian Fire-walk
Since these lines were written the kindness of Mr. Tawney, librarian at the India Office, has added to my stock of examples. Thus, Mr. Stokes printed in the Indian Antiquary (ii. p. 190) notes of evidence taken at an inquest on a boy of fourteen, who fell during the fire-walk, was burned, and died on that day. The rite had been forbidden, but was secretly practised in the village of Periyangridi. The fire-pit was 27 feet long by 7.5 feet broad and a span in depth. Thirteen persons walked through the hot wood embers, which, in Mr. Stokes's opinion (who did not see the performance), 'would hardly injure the tough skin of the sole of a labourer's foot,' yet killed a boy. The treading was usually done by men under vows, perhaps vows made during illness. One, at least, walked 'because it is my duty as Pujari.' Another says, 'I got down into the fire at the east end, meditating on Draupati, walked through to the west, and up the bank.' Draupati is a goddess, wife of the Pandavas. Mr. Stokes reports that, according to the incredulous, experienced fire-walkers smear their feet with oil of the green frog. No report is made as to the condition of their feet when they emerge from the fire.
Another case occurs in Oppert's work, The Original Inhabitants of India (p. 480). As usual, a pit is dug, filled with faggots. When these have burned down 'a little,' and 'while the heat is still unbearable in the neighbourhood of the ditch, those persons who have made the vow . . . walk . . . on the embers in the pit, without doing themselves as a rule much harm.'
Again, in a case where butter is poured over the embers to make a blaze, 'one of the tribal priests, in a state of religious afflatus, walks through the fire. It is said that the sacred fire is harmless, but some admit that a certain preservative ointment is used by the performers.' A chant used at Mirzapur (as in Fiji) is cited. {171}
In these examples the statements are rather vague. No evidence is adduced as to the actual effect of the fire on the feet of the ministrants. We hear casually of ointments which protect the feet, and of the thickness of the skins of the fire-walkers, and of the unapproachable heat, but we have nothing exact, no trace of scientific precision. The Government 'puts down,' but does not really investigate the rite.
Psychical Parallels
I now very briefly, and 'under all reserves,' allude to the only modern parallel in our country with which I am acquainted. We have seen that Iamblichus includes insensibility to fire among the privileges of Graeco- Egyptian 'mediums.' {172} The same gift was claimed by Daniel Dunglas Home, the notorious American spiritualist. I am well aware that as Eusapia Paladino was detected in giving a false impression that her hands were held by her neighbours in the dark, therefore, when Mr. Crookes asserts that he saw Home handle fire in the light, his testimony on this point can have no weight with a logical public. Consequently it is not as evidence to the fact that I cite Mr. Crookes, but for another purpose. Mr. Crookes's remarks I heard, and I can produce plenty of living witnesses to the same experiences with D. D. Home:
'I several times saw the fire test, both at my own and at other houses. On one occasion he called me to him when he went to the fire, and told me to watch carefully. He certainly put his hand in the grate and handled the red-hot coals in a manner which would have been impossible for me to have imitated without being severely burnt. I once saw him go to a bright wood fire, and, taking a large piece of red-hot charcoal, put it in the hollow of one hand, and, covering it with the other, blow into the extempore furnace till the coal was white hot, and the flames licked round his fingers. No sign of burning could be seen then or afterwards on his hands.'
On these occasions Home was, or was understood to be, 'entranced,' like the Bulgarian Nistinares. Among other phenomena, the white handkerchief on which Home laid a red-hot coal was not scorched, nor, on analysis, did it show any signs of chemical preparation. Home could also (like the Fijians) communicate his alleged immunity to others present; for example, to Mr. S. C. Hall. But it burned and marked a man I know. Home, entranced, and handling a red-hot coal, passed it to a gentleman of my acquaintance, whose hand still bears the scar of the scorching endured in 1867. Immunity was not always secured by experimenters.
I only mention these circumstances because Mr. Crookes has stated that he knows no chemical preparation which would avert the ordinary action of heat. Mr. Clodd (on the authority of Sir B. W. Richardson) has suggested diluted sulphuric acid (so familiar to Klings, Hirpi, Tongans, and Fijians). But Mr. Clodd produced no examples of successful or unsuccessful experiment. {173} The nescience of Mr. Crookes may be taken to cover these valuable properties of diluted sulphuric acid, unless Mr. Clodd succeeds in an experiment which, if made on his own person, I would very willingly witness.
Merely for completeness, I mention Dr. Dozous's statement, {174} that he timed by his watch Bernadette, the seer of Lourdes, while, for fifteen minutes, she, in an ecstatic condition, held her hands in the flame of a candle. He then examined her hands, which were not scorched or in any way affected by the fire. This is called, at Lourdes, the Miracle du Cierge.
Here ends my list of examples, in modern and ancient times, of a rite which deserves, though it probably will not receive, the attention of science. The widely diffused religious character of the performance will, perhaps, be admitted as demonstrated. As to the method by which the results are attained, whether by a chemical preparation, or by the influence of a certain mental condition, or by thickness of skin, or whether all the witnesses fable with a singular unanimity (shared by photographic cameras), I am unable even to guess. On May 21, in Bulgaria, a scientific observer might come to a conclusion. At present I think it possible that the Jewish 'Passing through the Fire' may have been a harmless rite.
Conclusion as to Fire-walk
In all these cases, and others as to which I have first-hand evidence, there are decided parallels to the Rite of the Hirpi, and to Biblical and ecclesiastical miracles. The savage examples are rites, and appear intended to secure good results in food supplies (Fiji), or general well- being, perhaps by expiation for sins, as in the Attic Thargelia. The Bulgarian rite also aims at propitiating general good luck.
Psychical Research
But how is the Fire-walk done? That remains a mystery, and perhaps no philologist, folk-lorist, anthropologist, or physiologist, has seriously asked the question. The medicamentum of Varro, the green frog fat of India, the diluted sulphuric acid of Mr. Clodd, are guesses in the air, and Mr. Clodd has made no experiment. The possibility of plunging the hand, unhurt, in molten metal, is easily accounted for, and is not to the point. In this difficulty Psychical Research registers, and no more, the well-attested performances of D. D. Home (entranced, like the Nistinares); the well observed and timed Miracle du Cierge at Lourdes—Bernadette being in an ecstatic condition; the Biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace; the researches of Iamblichus; the case of Madame Shchapoff, carefully reported, {175} and other examples. There is no harm in collecting examples, and the question remains, are all those rites, from those of Virgil's Hirpi to Bulgaria of to-day, based on some actual but obscure and scientifically neglected fact in nature? At all events, for the Soranus-Feronia rite philology only supplies her competing etymologies, folk-lore her modern rural parallels, anthropology her savage examples, psychical research her 'cases' at first-hand. Anthropology had neglected the collection of these, perhaps because the Fire-walk is 'impossible.'
THE ORIGIN OF DEATH
Yama
This excursus on 'The Fire-walk' has been introduced, as an occasion arose, less because of controversy about a neglected theme than for the purpose of giving something positive in a controversial treatise. For the same reason I take advantage of Mr. Max Muller's remarks on Yama, 'the first who died,' to offer a set of notes on myths of the Origin of Death. Yama, in our author's opinion, is 'the setting sun' (i. 45; ii. 563). Agni (Fire) is 'the first who was born;' as the other twin, Yama, he was also the first who died (ii. 568). As 'the setting sun he was the first instance of death.' Kuhn and others, judging from a passage in the Atharva Veda (xviii. 3, 13), have, however, inferred that Yama 'was really a human being and the first of mortals.' He is described in the Atharva as 'the gatherer of men, who died the first of mortals, who went forward the first to that world.' In the Atharva we read of 'reverence to Yama, to Death, who first approached the precipice, finding out the path for many.' 'The myth of Yama is perfectly intelligible, if we trace its roots back to the sun of evening' (ii. 573). Mr. Max Muller then proposes on this head 'to consult the traditions of real Naturvolker' (savages). The Harvey Islanders speak of dying as 'following the sun's track.' The Maoris talk of 'going down with the sun' (ii. 574). No more is said here about savage myths of 'the first who died.' I therefore offer some additions to the two instances in which savages use a poetical phrase connecting the sun's decline with man's death.
The Origin of Death
Civilised man in a scientific age would never invent a myth to account for 'God's great ordinance of death.' He regards it as a fact, obvious and necessarily universal; but his own children have not attained to his belief in death. The certainty and universality of death do not enter into the thoughts of our little ones.
For in the thought of immortality Do children play about the flowery meads.
Now, there are still many childlike tribes of men who practically disbelieve in death. To them death is always a surprise and an accident—an unnecessary, irrelevant intrusion on the living world. 'Natural deaths are by many tribes regarded as supernatural,' says Dr. Tylor. These tribes have no conception of death as the inevitable, eventual obstruction and cessation of the powers of the bodily machine; the stopping of the pulses and processes of life by violence or decay or disease. To persons who regard Death thus, his intrusion into the world (for Death, of course, is thought to be a person) stands in great need of explanation. That explanation, as usual, is given in myths.
Death, regarded as Unnatural
But before studying these widely different myths, let us first establish the fact that death really is regarded as something non-natural and intrusive. The modern savage readily believes in and accounts in a scientific way for violent deaths. The spear or club breaks or crushes a hole in a man, and his soul flies out. But the deaths he disbelieves in are natural deaths. These he is obliged to explain as produced by some supernatural cause, generally the action of malevolent spirits impelled by witches. Thus the savage holds that, violence apart and the action of witches apart, man would even now be immortal. 'There are rude races of Australia and South America,' writes Dr. Tylor, {178} 'whose intense belief in witchcraft has led them to declare that if men were never bewitched, and never killed by violence, they would never die at all. Like the Australians, the Africans will inquire of their dead "what sorcerer slew them by his wicked arts."' 'The natives,' says Sir George Grey, speaking of the Australians, 'do not believe that there is such a thing as death from natural causes.' On the death of an Australian native from disease, a kind of magical coroner's inquest is held by the conjurers of the tribe, and the direction in which the wizard lives who slew the dead man is ascertained by the movements of worms and insects. The process is described at full length by Mr. Brough Smyth in his Aborigines of Victoria (i. 98-102). Turning from Australia to Hindustan, we find that the Puwarrees (according to Heber's narrative) attribute all natural deaths to a supernatural cause—namely, witchcraft. That is, the Puwarrees do not yet believe in the universality and necessity of Death. He is an intruder brought by magic arts into our living world. Again, in his Ethnology of Bengal (pp. 199, 200), Dalton tells us that the Hos (an aboriginal non-Aryan race) are of the same opinion as the Puwarrees. 'They hold that all disease in men or animals is attributable to one of two causes: the wrath of some evil spirit or the spell of some witch or sorcerer. These superstitions are common to all classes of the population of this province.' In the New Hebrides disease and death are caused, as Mr. Codrington found, by tamates, or ghosts. {179} In New Caledonia, according to Erskine, death is the result of witchcraft practised by members of a hostile tribe, for who would be so wicked as to bewitch his fellow-tribesman? The Andaman Islanders attribute all natural deaths to the supernatural influence of e rem chaugala, or to jurn-win, two spirits of the jungle and the sea. The death is avenged by the nearest relation of the deceased, who shoots arrows at the invisible enemy. The negroes of Central Africa entertain precisely similar ideas about the non-naturalness of death. Mr. Duff Macdonald, in Africana, writes: 'Every man who dies what we call a natural death is really killed by witches.' It is a far cry from the Blantyre Mission in Africa to the Eskimo of the frozen North; but so uniform is human nature in the lower races that the Eskimo precisely agree, as far as theories of death go, with the Africans, the aborigines of India, the Andaman Islanders, the Australians, and the rest. Dr. Rink {180a} found that 'sickness or death coming about in an accidental manner was always attributed to witchcraft, and it remains a question whether death on the whole was not originally accounted for as resulting from magic.' Pere Paul le Jeune, writing from Quebec in 1637, says of the Red Men: 'Je n'en voy mourir quasi aucun, qui ne pense estre ensorcele.' {180b} It is needless to show how these ideas survived into civilisation. Bishop Jewell, denouncing witches before Queen Elizabeth, was, so far, mentally on a level with the Eskimo and the Australian. The familiar and voluminous records of trials for witchcraft, whether at Salem or at Edinburgh, prove that all abnormal and unwonted deaths and diseases, in animals or in men, were explained by our ancestors as the results of supernatural mischief.
It has been made plain (and the proof might be enlarged to any extent) that the savage does not regard death as 'God's great ordinance,' universal and inevitable and natural. But, being curious and inquisitive, he cannot help asking himself, 'How did this terrible invader first enter a world where he now appears so often?' This is, properly speaking, a scientific question; but the savage answers it, not by collecting facts and generalising from them, but by inventing a myth. That is his invariable habit. Does he want to know why this tree has red berries, why that animal has brown stripes, why this bird utters its peculiar cry, where fire came from, why a constellation is grouped in one way or another, why his race of men differs from the whites—in all these, and in all other intellectual perplexities, the savage invents a story to solve the problem. Stories about the Origin of Death are, therefore, among the commonest fruits of the savage imagination. As those legends have been produced to meet the same want by persons in a very similar mental condition, it inevitably follows that they all resemble each other with considerable closeness. We need not conclude that all the myths we are about to examine came from a single original source, or were handed about—with flint arrow-heads, seeds, shells, beads, and weapons—in the course of savage commerce. Borrowing of this sort may—or, rather, must—explain many difficulties as to the diffusion of some myths. But the myths with which we are concerned now, the myths of the Origin of Death, might easily have been separately developed by simple and ignorant men seeking to discover an answer to the same problem.
Why Men are Mortal
The myths of the Origin of Death fall into a few categories. In many legends of the lower races men are said to have become subject to mortality because they infringed some mystic prohibition or taboo of the sort which is common among untutored peoples. The apparently untrammelled Polynesian, or Australian, or African, is really the slave of countless traditions, which forbid him to eat this object or to touch that, or to speak to such and such a person, or to utter this or that word. Races in this curious state of ceremonial subjection often account for death as the punishment imposed for breaking some taboo. In other cases, death is said to have been caused by a sin of omission, not of commission. People who have a complicated and minute ritual (like so many of the lower races) persuade themselves that Death burst on the world when some passage of the ritual was first omitted, or when some custom was first infringed. Yet again, Death is fabled to have first claimed us for his victims in consequence of the erroneous delivery of a favourable message from some powerful supernatural being, or because of the failure of some enterprise which would have resulted in the overthrow of Death, or by virtue of a pact or covenant between Death and the gods. Thus it will be seen that death is often (though by no means invariably) the penalty of infringing a command, or of indulging in a culpable curiosity. But there are cases, as we shall see, in which death, as a tolerably general law, follows on a mere accident. Some one is accidentally killed, and this 'gives Death a lead' (as they say in the hunting-field) over the fence which had hitherto severed him from the world of living men. It is to be observed in this connection that the first of men who died is usually regarded as the discoverer of a hitherto 'unknown country,' the land beyond the grave, to which all future men must follow him. Bin dir Woor, among the Australians, was the first man who suffered death, and he (like Yama in the Vedic myth) became the Columbus of the new world of the dead.
Savage Death-Myths
Let us now examine in detail a few of the savage stories of the Origin of Death. That told by the Australians may be regarded with suspicion, as a refraction from a careless hearing of the narrative in Genesis. The legend printed by Mr. Brough Smyth {183a} was told to Mr. Bulwer by 'a black fellow far from sharp,' and this black fellow may conceivably have distorted what his tribe had heard from a missionary. This sort of refraction is not uncommon, and we must always guard ourselves against being deceived by a savage corruption of a Biblical narrative. Here is the myth, such as it is:—'The first created man and woman were told' (by whom we do not learn) 'not to go near a certain tree in which a bat lived. The bat was not to be disturbed. One day, however, the woman was gathering firewood, and she went near the tree. The bat flew away, and after that came Death.' More evidently genuine is the following legend of how Death 'got a lead' into the Australian world. 'The child of the first man was wounded. If his parents could heal him, Death would never enter the world. They failed. Death came.' The wound in this legend was inflicted by a supernatural being. Here Death acts on the principle ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, and the premier pas was made easy for him. We may continue to examine the stories which account for death as the result of breaking a taboo. The Ningphos of Bengal say they were originally immortal. {183b} They were forbidden to bathe in a certain pool of water. Some one, greatly daring, bathed, and ever since Ningphos have been subject to death. The infringement, not of a taboo, but of a custom, caused death in one of the many Melanesian myths on this subject. Men and women had been practically deathless because they cast their old skins at certain intervals; but a grandmother had a favourite grandchild who failed to recognise her when she appeared as a young woman in her new skin. With fatal good-nature the grandmother put on her old skin again, and instantly men lost the art of skin-shifting, and Death finally seized them. {184}
The Greek Myth
The Greek myth of the Origin of Death is the most important of those which turn on the breaking of a prohibition. The story has unfortunately become greatly confused in the various poetical forms which have reached us. As far as can be ascertained, death was regarded in one early Greek myth as the punishment of indulgence in forbidden curiosity. Men appear to have been free from death before the quarrel between Zeus and Prometheus. In consequence of this quarrel Hephaestus fashioned a woman out of earth and water, and gave her to Epimetheus, the brother of the Titan. Prometheus had forbidden his brother to accept any gift from the gods, but the bride was welcomed nevertheless. She brought her tabooed coffer: this was opened; and men—who, according to Hesiod, had hitherto lived exempt from 'maladies that bring down Fate'—were overwhelmed with the 'diseases that stalk abroad by night and day.' Now, in Hesiod (Works and Days, 70-100) there is nothing said about unholy curiosity. Pandora simply opened her casket and scattered its fatal contents. But Philodemus assures us that, according to a variant of the myth, it was Epimetheus who opened the forbidden coffer, whence came Death.
Leaving the myths which turn on the breaking of a taboo, and reserving for consideration the New Zealand story, in which the Origin of Death is the neglect of a ritual process, let us look at some African myths of the Origin of Death. It is to be observed that in these (as in all the myths of the most backward races) many of the characters are not gods, but animals.
The Bushman story lacks the beginning. The mother of the little Hare was lying dead, but we do not know how she came to die. The Moon then struck the little Hare on the lip, cutting it open, and saying, 'Cry loudly, for your mother will not return, as I do, but is quite dead.' In another version the Moon promises that the old Hare shall return to life, but the little Hare is sceptical, and is hit in the mouth as before. The Hottentot myth makes the Moon send the Hare to men with the message that they will revive as he (the Moon) does. But the Hare 'loses his memory as he runs' (to quote the French proverb, which may be based on a form of this very tale), and the messenger brings the tidings that men shall surely die and never revive. The angry Moon then burns a hole in the Hare's mouth. In yet another Hottentot version the Hare's failure to deliver the message correctly caused the death of the Moon's mother (Bleek, Bushman Folklore). {185} Compare Sir James Alexander's Expedition, ii. 250, where the Namaquas tell this tale. The Fijians say that the Moon wished men to die and be born again, like herself. The Rat said, 'No, let them die, like rats;' and they do. {186}
The Serpent
In this last variant we have death as the result of a failure or transgression. Among the more backward natives of South India (Lewin's Wild Races of South India) the serpent is concerned, in a suspicious way, with the Origin of Death. The following legend might so easily arise from a confused understanding of the Mohammedan or Biblical narrative that it is of little value for our purpose. At the same time, even if it is only an adaptation, it shows the characteristics of the adapting mind:—God had made the world, trees, and reptiles, and then set to work to make man out of clay. A serpent came and devoured the still inanimate clay images while God slept. The serpent still comes and bites us all, and the end is death. If God never slept, there would be no death. The snake carries us off while God is asleep. But the oddest part of this myth remains. Not being able always to keep awake, God made a dog to drive away the snake by barking. And that is why dogs always howl when men are at the point of death. Here we have our own rural superstition about howling dogs twisted into a South Indian myth of the Origin of Death. The introduction of Death by a pure accident recurs in a myth of Central Africa reported by Mr. Duff Macdonald. There was a time when the man blessed by Sancho Panza had not yet 'invented sleep.' A woman it was who came and offered to instruct two men in the still novel art of sleeping. 'She held the nostrils of one, and he never awoke at all,' and since then the art of dying has been facile.
Dualistic Myths
A not unnatural theory of the Origin of Death is illustrated by a myth from Pentecost Island and a Red Indian myth. In the legends of very many races we find the attempt to account for the Origin of Death and Evil by a simple dualistic myth. There were two brothers who made things; one made things well, the other made them ill. In Pentecost Island it was Tagar who made things well, and he appointed that men should die for five days only, and live again. But the malevolent Suque caused men 'to die right out.' {187} The Red Indian legend of the same character is printed in the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (1879-80), p. 45. The younger of the Cin-au-av brothers, who were wolves, said, 'When a man dies, send him back in the morning and let all his friends rejoice.' 'Not so,' said the elder; 'the dead shall return no more.' So the younger brother slew the child of the elder, and this was the beginning of death.
Economic Myth
There is another and a very quaint myth of the Origin of Death in Banks Island. At first, in Banks Island, as elsewhere, men were immortal. The economical results were just what might have been expected. Property became concentrated in the hands of the few—that is, of the first generations—while all the younger people were practically paupers. To heal the disastrous social malady, Qat (the maker of things, who was more or less a spider) sent for Mate—that is, Death. Death lived near a volcanic crater of a mountain, where there is now a by-way into Hades—or Panoi, as the Melanesians call it. Death came, and went through the empty forms of a funeral feast for himself. Tangaro the Fool was sent to watch Mate, and to see by what way he returned to Hades, that men might avoid that path in future. Now when Mate fled to his own place, this great fool Tangaro noticed the path, but forgot which it was, and pointed it out to men under the impression that it was the road to the upper, not to the under, world. Ever since that day men have been constrained to follow Mate's path to Panoi and the dead. {188} Another myth is somewhat different, but, like this one, attributes death to the imbecility of Tangaro the Fool.
Maui and Yama
The New Zealand myth of the Origin of Death is pretty well known, as Dr. Tylor has seen in it the remnants of a solar myth, and has given it a 'solar' explanation. It is an audacious thing to differ from so cautious and learned an anthropologist as Dr. Tylor, but I venture to give my reasons for dissenting in this case from the view of the author of Primitive Culture (i. 335). Maui is the great hero of Maori mythology. He was not precisely a god, still less was he one of the early elemental gods, yet we can scarcely regard him as a man. He rather answers to one of the race of Titans, and especially to Prometheus, the son of a Titan. Maui was prematurely born, and his mother thought the child would be no credit to her already numerous and promising family. She therefore (as native women too often did in the South-Sea Islands) tied him up in her long tresses and tossed him out to sea. The gales brought him back to shore: one of his grandparents carried him home, and he became much the most illustrious and successful of his household. So far Maui had the luck which so commonly attends the youngest and least-considered child in folklore and mythology. This feature in his myth may be a result of the very widespread custom of jungsten Recht (Borough English), by which the youngest child is heir at least of the family hearth. Now, unluckily, at the baptism of Maui (for a pagan form of baptism is a Maori ceremony) his father omitted some of the Karakias, or ritual utterances proper to be used on such occasions. This was the fatal original mistake whence came man's liability to death, for hitherto men had been immortal. So far, what is there 'solar' about Maui? Who are the sun's brethren?—and Maui had many. How could the sun catch the sun in a snare, and beat him so as to make him lame? This was one of Maui's feats, for he meant to prevent the sun from running too fast through the sky. Maui brought fire, indeed, from the under-world, as Prometheus stole it from the upper-world; but many men and many beasts do as much as the myths of the world, and it is hard to see how the exploit gives Maui 'a solar character.' Maui invented barbs for hooks, and other appurtenances of early civilisation, with which the sun has no more to do than with patent safety-matches. His last feat was to attempt to secure human immortality for ever. There are various legends on this subject.
Maui Myths
Some say Maui noticed that the sun and moon rose again from their daily death, by virtue of a fountain in Hades (Hine-nui-te-po) where they bathed. Others say he wished to kill Hine-nui-te-po (conceived of as a woman) and to carry off her heart. Whatever the reason, Maui was to be swallowed up in the giant frame of Hades, or Night, and, if he escaped alive, Death would never have power over men. He made the desperate adventure, and would have succeeded but for the folly of one of the birds which accompanied him. This little bird, which sings at sunset, burst out laughing inopportunely, wakened Hine-nui-te-po, and she crushed to death Maui and all hopes of earthly immortality. Had he only come forth alive, men would have been deathless. Now, except that the bird which laughed sings at sunset, what is there 'solar' in all this? The sun does daily what Maui failed to do, {190a} passes through darkness and death back into light and life. Not only does the sun daily succeed where Maui failed, but it was his observation of this fact which encouraged Maui to risk the adventure. If Maui were the sun, we should all be immortal, for Maui's ordeal is daily achieved by the sun. But Dr. Tylor says: {190b} 'It is seldom that solar characteristics are more distinctly marked in the several details of a myth than they are here.' To us the characteristics seem to be precisely the reverse of solar. Throughout the cycle of Maui he is constantly set in direct opposition to the sun, and the very point of the final legend is that what the sun could do Maui could not. Literally the one common point between Maui and the sun is that the little bird, the tiwakawaka, which sings at the daily death of day, sang at the eternal death of Maui.
Without pausing to consider the Tongan myth of the Origin of Death, we may go on to investigate the legends of the Aryan races. According to the Satapatha Brahmana, Death was made, like the gods and other creatures, by a being named Prajapati. Now of Prajapati, half was mortal, half was immortal. With his mortal half he feared Death, and concealed himself from Death in earth and water. Death said to the gods, 'What hath become of him who created us?' They answered, 'Fearing thee, hath he entered the earth.' The gods and Prajapati now freed themselves from the dominion of Death by celebrating an enormous number of sacrifices. Death was chagrined by their escape from the 'nets and clubs' which he carries in the Aitareya Brahmana. 'As you have escaped me, so will men also escape,' he grumbled. The gods appeased him by the promise that, in the body, no man henceforth for ever should evade Death. 'Every one who is to become immortal shall do so by first parting with his body.'
Yama
Among the Aryans of India, as we have already seen, Death has a protomartyr, Tama, 'the first of men who reached the river, spying out a path for many.' In spying the path Yama corresponds to Tangaro the Fool, in the myth of the Solomon Islands. But Yama is not regarded as a maleficent being, like Tangaro. The Rig Veda (x. 14) speaks of him as 'King Yama, who departed to the mighty streams and sought out a road for many;' and again, the Atharva Veda names him 'the first of men who died, and the first who departed to the celestial world.' With him the Blessed Fathers dwell for ever in happiness. Mr. Max Muller, as we said, takes Yama to be 'a character suggested by the setting sun'—a claim which is also put forward, as we have seen, for the Maori hero Maui. It is Yama, according to the Rig Veda, who sends the birds—a pigeon is one of his messengers (compare the White Bird of the Oxenhams)—as warnings of approaching death. Among the Iranian race, Yima appears to have been the counterpart of the Vedic Yama. He is now King of the Blessed; originally he was the first of men over whom Death won his earliest victory.
Inferences
That Yama is mixed up with the sun, in the Rig Veda, seems certain enough. Most phenomena, most gods, shade into each other in the Vedic hymns. But it is plain that the conception of a 'first man who died' is as common to many races as it is natural. Death was regarded as unnatural, yet here it is among us. How did it come? By somebody dying first, and establishing a bad precedent. But need that somebody have been originally the sun, as Mr. Max Muller and Dr. Tylor think in the cases of Yama and Maui? This is a point on which we may remain in doubt, for death in itself was certain to challenge inquiry among savage philosophers, and to be explained by a human rather than by a solar myth. Human, too, rather than a result of 'disease of language' is, probably, the myth of the Fire-stealer.
The Stealing of Fire
The world-wide myth explaining how man first became possessed of fire—namely, by stealing it—might well serve as a touchstone of the philological and anthropological methods. To Mr. Max Muller the interest of the story will certainly consist in discovering connections between Greek and Sanskrit names of fire-gods and of fire bringing heroes. He will not compare the fire-myths of other races all over the world, nor will he even try to explain why—in almost all of these myths we find a thief of fire, a Fire-stealer. This does not seem satisfactory to the anthropologist, whose first curiosity is to know why fire is everywhere said to have been obtained for men by sly theft or 'flat burglary.' Of course it is obvious that a myth found in Australia and America cannot possibly be the result of disease of Aryan languages not spoken in those two continents. The myth of fire-stealing must necessarily have some other origin.
'Fire Totems'
Mr. Max Muller, after a treatise on Agni and other fire-gods, consecrates two pages to 'Fire Totems.' 'If we are assured that there are some dark points left, and that these might be illustrated and rendered more intelligible by what are called fire totems among the Red Indians of North America, let us have as much light as we can get' (ii. 804). Alas! I never heard of fire totems before. Probably some one has been writing about them, somewhere, unless we owe them to Mr. Max Muller's own researches. Of course, he cites no authority for his fire totems. 'The fire totem, we are told, would thus naturally have become the god of the Indians.' 'We are told'—where, and by whom? Not a hint is given on the subject, so we must leave the doctrine of fire totems to its mysterious discoverer. 'If others prefer to call Prometheus a fire totem, no one would object, if only it would help us to a better understanding of Prometheus' (ii. 810). Who are the 'others' who speak of a Greek 'culture-hero' by the impossibly fantastic name of 'a fire totem'?
Prometheus
Mr. Max Muller 'follows Kuhn' in his explanation of Prometheus, the Fire- stealer, but he does not follow him all the way. Kuhn tried to account for the myth that Prometheus stole fire, and Mr. Max Muller does not try. {194} Kuhn connects Prometheus with the Sanskrit pramantha, the stick used in producing fire by drilling a pointed into a flat piece of wood. The Greeks, of course, made Prometheus mean 'foresighted,' providens; but let it be granted that the Germans know better. Pramantha next is associated with the verb mathnami, 'to rub or grind;' and that, again, with Greek [Greek], 'to learn.' We too talk of a student as a 'grinder,' by a coincidence. The root manth likewise means 'to rob;' and we can see in English how a fire-stick, a 'fire-rubber,' might become a 'fire-robber,' a stealer of fire. A somewhat similar confusion in old Aryan languages converted the fire-stick into a person, the thief of fire, Prometheus; while a Greek misunderstanding gave to Prometheus (pramantha, 'fire-stick') the meaning of 'foresighted,' with the word for prudent foresight, [Greek]. This, roughly stated, is the view of Kuhn. {195a} Mr. Max Muller concludes that Prometheus, the producer of fire, is also the fire-god, a representative of Agni, and necessarily 'of the inevitable Dawn'—'of Agni as the deus matutinus, a frequent character of the Vedic Agni, the Agni aushasa, or the daybreak' (ii. 813).
But Mr. Max Muller does not say one word about Prometheus as the Fire- stealer. Now, that he stole fire is of the essence of his myth; and this myth of the original procuring of fire by theft occurs all over the world. As Australian and American savages cannot conceivably have derived the myth of fire-stealing from the root manth and its double sense of stealing and rubbing, there must be some other explanation. But this fact could not occur to comparative mythologists who did not compare, probably did not even know, similar myths wherever found.
Savage Myths of Fire-stealing
In La Mythologie (pp. 185-195) I have put together a small collection of savage myths of the theft of fire. {195b} Our text is the line of Hesiod (Theogony, 566), 'Prometheus stole the far-seen ray of unwearied fire in a hollow stalk of fennel.' The same stalk is still used in the Greek isles for carrying fire, as it was of old—whence no doubt this feature of the myth. {195c} How did Prometheus steal fire? Some say from the altar of Zeus, others that he lit his rod at the sun. {196a} The Australians have the same fable; fire was obtained by a black fellow who climbed by a rope to the sun. Again, in Australia fire was the possession of two women alone. A man induced them to turn their backs, and stole fire. A very curious version of the myth occurs in an excellent book by Mrs. Langloh Parker. {196b} There was no fire when Rootoolgar, the crane, married Gooner, the kangaroo rat. Rootoolgar, idly rubbing two sticks together, discovered the art of fire-making. 'This we will keep secret,' they said, 'from all the tribes.' A fire- stick they carried about in their comebee. The tribes of the Bush discovered the secret, and the fire-stick was stolen by Reeargar, the hawk. We shall be told, of course, that the hawk is the lightning, or the Dawn. But in this savage Jungle Book all the characters are animals, and Reeargar is no more the Dawn than is the kangaroo rat. In savage myths animals, not men, play the leading roles, and the fire-stealing bird or beast is found among many widely scattered races. In Normandy the wren is the fire-bringer. {196c} A bird brings fire in the Andaman Isles. {196d} Among the Ahts a fish owned fire; other beasts stole it. The raven hero of the Thlinkeets, Yehl, stole fire. Among the Cahrocs two old women possessed it, and it was stolen by the coyote. Are these theftuous birds and beasts to be explained as Fire-gods? Probably not. Will any philologist aver that in Cahroc, Thlinkeet. Australian, Andaman, and so forth, the word for 'rub' resembled the word for 'rob,' and so produced by 'a disease of language' the myth of the Fire-stealer?
Origin of the Myth of Fire-stealing
The myth arose from the nature of savage ideas, not from unconscious puns. Even in a race so civilised as the Homeric Greeks, to make fire was no easy task. Homer speaks of a man, in a lonely upland hut, who carefully keeps the embers alive, that he may not have to go far afield in search of the seed of fire. {197} Obviously he had no ready means of striking a light. Suppose, then, that an early savage loses his seed of fire. His nearest neighbours, far enough off, may be hostile. If he wants fire, as they will not give it, he must steal it, just as he must steal a wife. People in this condition would readily believe, like the Australian blacks, that the original discoverers or possessors of a secret so valuable as fire would not give it away, that others who wanted it would be obliged to get it by theft. In Greece, in a civilised race, this very natural old idea survives, though fire is not the possession of a crane, or of an old woman, but of the gods, and is stolen, not by a hawk or a coyote, but by Prometheus, the culture-hero and demiurge. Whether his name 'Foresighted' is a mistaken folk-etymology from the root manth, or not, we have, in the ancient inevitable idea, that the original patentees of fire would not willingly part with their treasure, the obvious origin of the myth of the Fire-stealer. And this theory does not leave the analogous savage myths of fire-stealing unexplained and out in the cold, as does the philological hypothesis. {198} In this last instance, as in others, the origin of a world-wide myth is found, not in a 'disease of language,' but in a form of thought still natural. If a foreign power wants what answers among us to the exclusive possession of fire, or wants the secret of its rival's new explosive, it has to steal it.
CONCLUSION
Here ends this 'Gentle and Joyous Passage of Arms.' I showed, first, why anthropological students of mythology, finding the philological school occupying the ground, were obliged in England to challenge Mr. Max Muller. I then discoursed of some inconveniences attending his method in controversy. Next, I gave a practical example, the affair of Tuna and Daphne. This led to a comparison of the philological and the anthropological ways of treating the Daphne myth. The question of our allies then coming up, I stated my reasons for regarding Prof. Tiele 'rather as an ally than an adversary,' the reason being his own statement. Presently, I replied to Prof. Tiele's criticism of my treatment of the myth of Cronos. After a skirmish on Italian fields, I gave my reasons for disagreeing with Mr. Max Muller's view of Mannhardt's position. His theory of Demeter Erinnys was contrasted with that of Mr. Max Muller. Totemism occupied us next, and the views of Mr. Max Muller and Mr. J. G. Frazer were criticised. Then I defended anthropological and criticised philological evidence. Our method of universal comparison was next justified in the matter of Fetishism. The Riddle Theory of Mr. Max Muller was presently discussed. Then followed a review of our contending methods in the explanation of Artemis, of the Fire-walk, of Death Myths, and of the Fire-stealer. Thus a number of points in mythological interpretation have been tested on typical examples.
Much more might be said on a book of nearly 900 pages. Many points might be taken, much praise (were mine worth anything) might be given; but I have had but one object, to defend the method of anthropology from a running or dropping fire of criticism which breaks out in many points all along the line, through Contributions to the Science of Mythology. If my answer be desultory and wandering, remember the sporadic sharpshooting of the adversary! For adversary we must consider Mr. Max Muller, so long as we use different theories to different results. If I am right, if he is wrong, in our attempts to untie this old Gordian knot, he loses little indeed. That fame of his, the most steady and brilliant light of all which crown the brows of contemporary scholars, is the well-earned reward, not of mythological lore nor of cunning fence in controversy, but of wide learning and exquisitely luminous style.
I trust that I have imputed no unfairness, made no charge of conscious misrepresentation (to accidents of exposition we are all liable), have struck no foul blow, hazarded no discourteous phrase. If I have done so, I am thereby, even more than in my smattering of unscholarly learning, an opponent more absolutely unworthy of the Right Hon. Professor than I would fain believe myself.
APPENDIX A: The Fire-walk in Spain
One study occasionally illustrates another. In examining the history of the Earl Marischal, who was exiled after the rising of 1715, I found, in a letter of a correspondent of d'Alembert, that the Earl met a form of the fire-walk in Spain. There then existed in the Peninsula a hereditary class of men who, by dint of 'charms' permitted by the Inquisition, could enter fire unharmed. The Earl Marischal said that he would believe in their powers if he were allowed first to light the fire, and then to look on. But the fire-walkers would not gratify him, as not knowing what kind of fire a heretic might kindle.
APPENDIX B: Mr. Macdonell on Vedic Mythology
Too late for use here came Vedic Mythology, from Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie, {201} by Mr. A. Macdonell, the representative of the historic house of Lochgarry. This even a non-scholar can perceive to be a most careful and learned work. As to philological 'equations' between names of Greek and Vedic gods, Mr. Macdonell writes: 'Dyaus=[Greek] is the only one which can be said to be beyond the range of doubt.' As to the connection of Prometheus with Sanskrit Pramantha, he says: '[Greek] has every appearance of being a purely Greek formation, while the Indian verb math, to twirl, is found compounded only with nis, never with pra, to express the art of producing fire by friction.' (See above, p. 194.) If Mr. Macdonell is right here, the Greek myth of the fire-stealer cannot have arisen from 'a disease of language.' But scholars must be left to reconcile this last typical example of their ceaseless differences in the matter of etymology of names.
FOOTNOTES
{0a} Chips, iv. 62.
{0b} Chips, iv. p. xxxv.
{0c} Chips, iv. pp. vi. vii.
{0d} Ibid. iv. p. xv.
{0e} Cults of the Greek States, ii. 435-440.
{0f} Chips, iv. p. xiv.
{0g} Chips, iv. p. xiii.
{5} Suidas, s.v. [Greek]; he cites Dionysius of Chalcis, B.C. 200.
{6a} See Goguet, and Millar of Glasgow, and Voltaire.
{6b} Translated by M. Parmentier.
{7} See 'Totemism,' infra.
{8} Longmans.
{10a} M. R. R. i. 155-160.
{10b} Tylor's Prim. Cult. i. 145.
{10c} Turner's Samoa, p. 219.
{10d} Gill's Myths and Songs, p. 79.
{11} M. R. R. ii. 160.
{14} Metam. i. 567.
{15a} Grimm, cited by Liebrecht in Zur Volkskunde, p. 17.
{15b} Primitive Culture, i. 285.
{15c} Op. cit. i. 46-81.
{16} M. R. R. i. 160.
{17} Erratum: This is erroneous. See Contributions, &c., vol. i. p. 6, where Mr. Max Muller writes, 'Tuna means eel.' This shows why Tuna, i.e. Eel, is the hero. His connection, as an admirer, with the Moon, perhaps remains obscure.
{18} Phonetically there may be 'no possible objection to the derivation of [Greek] from a Sanskrit form, *Apa-var-yan, or *Apa-val-yan' (ii. 692); but, historically, Greek is not derived from Sanskrit surely!
{20a} Mythologische Forschungen, p. 275.
{20b} Baumkultus, p. 297. Berlin: 1875.
{21a} Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 257. Referring to Baumkultus, p. 297.
{21b} Oriental and Linguistic Studies, second series, p. 160. La Religion Vedique, iii. 293.
{22} 1, viii. cf. i. 27.
{23} Riv. Crit. Mensile. Geneva, iii. xiv. p. 2.
{25a} Custom and Myth, p. 3, citing Revue de l'Hist. des Religions, ii. 136.
{25b} M. R. R. i. 24.
{25c} Revue de l'Hist. des Religions, xii. 256.
{26} Op. cit. p. 253.
{27} Op. cit. xii. 250.
{28a} P. 104, infra.
{28b} Revue de l'Hist. des Religions, xii. 259.
{29a} M. R. R. i. 25.
{29b} Rev. xii. 247.
{30} M. R. R. i. 24.
{31a} Rev. xii. 277.
{31b} Rev. xii. 264.
{31c} M. R. R. i. 44, 45.
{32a} Custom and Myth, p. 51.
{32b} Rev. xii. 262.
{34} Odyssey, book ix.
{37} C. and M. p. 56.
{42a} W. u. F. K. xxiii.
{42b} M. R. R. i. 23.
{42c} W. u. F. K. xvii.
{46} Golden Bough, 1. ix.
{48} [Greek]. Dionys. i. 80.
{51a} Pausanias, viii. 25.
{51b} Myth. Forsch. p. 244.
{51c} Iliad, xx. 226.
{52} Myth. Forsch, p. 265
{54} September 19, 1875. Myth. Forsch. xiv.
{55} For undeniable solar myths see M. R. R. i. 124-135.
{56} Op. cit. p. xx.
{60} Folk Lore Society.
{61a} Von einem der vorzuglichsten Schiriftgelehrten, Annana, in klassischer Darstellung aufgezeichneten Marchens, p. 240.
{61b} Custom and Myth.
{62a} See Preface to Mrs. Hunt's translation of Grimm's Marchen.
{62b} P. 309.
{65} x. 17. Cf. Muir, Sanskrit Texts, v. 277.
{66} As the Sun's wife is Dawn, and leaves him at dawn, she is not much of a bedfellow. As Night, however, she is a bedfellow of the nocturnal Sun.
{71} M. R. R. i. 58-81.
{72a} See Robertson Smith on 'Semitic Religion.'
{72b} See Sayce's Herodotus, p. 344.
{72c} See Rhys' Rhind Lectures; I am not convinced by the evidence.
{73} Academy, September 27, 1884.
{74a} Anth. Rel. p. 405.
{74b} Plantagenet, Planta genista.—A. L.
{74c} See M. R. R. ii. 56, for a criticism of this theory.
{76} Religion of the Semites, pp. 208, 209.
{78} Die Religionen, p. 12.
{79} Anth. Rel. p. 122.
{80} Dalton.
{81a} Strabo, xiii. 613. Pausanias, i. 24, 8.
{81b} Crooke, Introduction to Popular Religion of North India, p. 380.
{82a} C. and M. p. 115.
{82b} Contributions, ii. 687.
{83a} Evidence in G. B. i. 325, 326.
{83b} Compare Liebrecht, 'The Eaten God,' in Zur Volkskunde, p. 436.
{84a} Cf. G. B. ii. 17, for evidence.
{84b} M. R. R. ii. 232.
{84c} G. B. ii. 90-113.
{84d} In Encyclop. Brit. he thinks it 'very probable.'
{85a} i. 200.
{85b} M. R. R. ii. 142, 148-149.
{85c} R. V. iv. 18, 10.
{86} G. B. ii. 44-49.
{87} G. B. ii. 33.
{88a} Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. vi. McLennan, The Patriarchal Theory, p. 207, note 2.
{88b} G. B. ii. 337.
{89a} See G. B. ii. 332-334.
{89b} Religion of the Semites, p. 118.
{90} G. B. ii. 337, 338.
{93a} Custom and Myth, p. 235.
{93b} M. R. R. ii. 327.
{93c} Op. cit. ii. 329.
{94} Lectures on Science of Language, Second Series, p. 41.
{95} M. R. R. ii. 336.
{96} Anthropological Religion.
{97a} M. R. R. i. 171-173.
{97b} Ibid. i. 172.
{97c} Anth. Rel. p. 180.
{100} 'Totemism,' Encyclop. Brit.
{101a} M. R. R. ii. 333.
{101b} Ibid. ii. 335.
{103} M. R.. R.. i. 96, 127; ii. 22, 336.
{106a} Greek Etym. Engl. transl. i. 147.
{106b} Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, p. 431.
{109} Gr. Etym. i. 150.
{110} M. R. R. ii. 142.
{111a} ii. 210. Cf. Oldenberg in Deutsche Rundschau, 1895, p. 205.
{111b} R. V. iv. 18, 10.
{114} Aglaophamus, i. 700.
{115} Custom and Myth, i. 29-44. M. R. R. ii. 260-273.
{116} Custom and Myth, pp. 212-242.
{117a} Culte des Fetiches, 1760.
{117b} Codrington, Journal Anthrop. Inst., Feb. 1881.
{118a} C. and M. p. 230, note.
{118b} Rochas, Les Forces non definies, 1888, pp. 340-357, 411, 626.
{118c} Revue Bleue, 1890, p. 367.
{118d} De Brosses, p. 16.
{120a} C. and M. p. 214.
{120b} M. R. R. i. 327.
{120c} Lectures on the Science of Language, 2nd series, p. 41.
{121} M. R. R. ii. 327 and 329.
{124} M. R. R. ii. 324.
{125a} Paris: OEuvres, 1758, iii. 270.
{125b} M. R. R. ii. 324.
{126} I have no concern with his criticism of Mr. Herbert Spencer (p. 203), as I entirely disagree with that philosopher's theory. The defence of 'Animism' I leave to Dr. Tylor.
{135} Meyer, 1846, apud Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 432.
{138} My italics.
{139a} M. R. R. ii. 208-221.
{139b} Ibid. ii. 209.
{140} M. R. R. ii. 218.
{141a} De Dianae Antiquissima apud Graecos Natura, p. 76. Vratislaw, 1881.
{141b} De Diane Brauron, p. 33. Compare, for all the learning, Mr. Farnell, in Cults of the Greek States.
{142a} M. R. R. i. x.
{142b} Life in California, pp. 241, 303.
{142c} Religion of the Semites, p. 274.
{142d} See also Mr. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 90-94; and Robertson Smith, op. cit. pp. 416-418.
{142e} Apostolius, viii. 19; vii. 10.
{143a} Melanesians, p. 32.
{143b} Samoa, p. 17.
{143c} M. R. R. ii. 33.
{143d} See also Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 92.
{143e} M. R. R. ii. 208.
{144a} M. R. R. ii. 209.
{144b} Custom and Myth, 'Star Myths.'
{148a} L. Preller, Rom. Myth. p. 239, gives etymologies.
{148b} AEn. xi. 785.
{149a} A. W. F. p. 328.
{149b} Dionys. Halic. iii. 32.
{149c} Hist. Nat. vii. 2.
{149d} AEn. xi. 784.
{149e} AEn. xi. 787.
{150a} Serv. AEn. vii. 800.
{150b} Authorities in A. F. W. K. p. 325.
{151a} Herabkunft, p. 30.
{151b} Pausanias, viii. 385.
{151c} A. W. F. K. xxii. xxiii.
{153} Janus, pp. 44-49.
{161} Home, the medium, was, or affected to be, entranced in his fire tricks, as was Bernadette, at Lourdes, in the Miracle du Cierge.
{163} The photograph referred to is evidently taken from a sketch by hand, and is not therefore a photograph from life.—EDITOR. The original photograph was hereon sent to the editor and acknowledged by him.—A. L.
{169} Proces, Quicherat, ii. 396, 397
{171} Introduction to Popular Religion and Folk-Lore in Northern India, by W. Crookes, B.A., p. 10.
{172} Iamblichus, De Myst. iii. 4.
{173} Folk-Lore, September 1895.
{174} Quoted by Dr. Boissarie in his book, Lourdes, p. 49, from a book by Dr. Dozous, now rare. Thanks to information from Dr. Boissarie, I have procured the book by Dr. Dozous, an eye-witness of the miracle, and have verified the quotation.
{175} Predvestniki spiritizma za posleanie 250 lyet. A. M. Aksakoff, St. Petersburg, 1895. See Mr. Leaf's review, Proceedings S. P. R. xii. 329.
{178} Prim. Cult. i. 138.
{179} Journal of Anthrop. Institute, x. iii.
{180a} Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 42.
{180b} Relations, 1637, p. 49.
{183a} Abor. of Victoria, i. 429.
{183b} Dalton, op. cit.
{184} Codrington, Journal Anthrop. Institute, x. iii. For America, compare Relations de la Nouvelle France, 1674, p. 13.
{185} The connection between the Moon and the Hare is also found in Sanskrit, in Mexican, in some of the South Sea Islands, and in German and Buddhist folklore. Probably what we call 'the Man in the Moon' seemed very like a hare to various races, roused their curiosity, and provoked explanations in the shape of myths.
{186} Hahn, Tsuni-Goam, p. 150.
{187} Codrington, op. cit, p. 304.
{188} Codrington, op. cit.
{190a} Bastian, Heilige Sage.
{190b} Primitive Culture, i. 336.
{194} Kuhn, Die Herabkunft der Feuers und der Gottertranks. Berlin, 1859.
{195a} Herabkunft, pp. 16, 24.
{195b} Dupret, Paris, 1886. Translation by M. Parmentier.
{195c} Pliny, Hist. Nat. xiii. 22. Bent. Cyclades.
{196a} Servius ad Virg., Eclogue vi. 42.
{196b} Australian Legendary Tales. Nutt: London, 1897. Mrs. Parker knows Australian dialects, and gives one story in the original. Her tribes live on the Narran River, in New South Wales.
{196c} Bosquet, La Normandie Merveilleuse. Paris, 1845.
{196d} Journal Anthrop. Institute, November, 1884.
{197} Odyssey, v. 488-493.
{198} References for savage myths of the Fire-stealer will be found—for the Ahts, in Sproat; for the tribes of the Pacific coast, in Bancroft; for Australians in Brough Smyth's Aborigines of Victoria.
{201} Trubner, Strasburg, 1897.
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