Volume I Part 12 (2/2)

(4) Bancroft, Races of Pacific Coast, i. 740.

(5) Brinton, Annals of the Cakchiquels, p. 46.

(6) Pinkerton, i. 471.

(7) Bleek, Brief Account of Bushman Folk-Lore, pp. 15, 40.

(8) English translation of Dobrizhoffer's Abipones, i. 163.

(9) Missionary Travels, p. 615.

(10) Livingstone, p. 642.

(11) Bancroft, ii.

(12) Century Magazine, July, 1882.

(13) Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal, p. 200.

(14) Dorman, pp. 130, 134; Report of Ethnological Bureau, Was.h.i.+ngton, 1880-81.

(15) A Journey, etc., p. 342.

Let us recapitulate the powers attributed all over the world, by the lower people, to medicine-men. The medicine-man has all miracles at his command. He rules the sky, he flies into the air, he becomes visible or invisible at will, he can take or confer any form at pleasure, and resume his human shape. He can control spirits, can converse with the dead, and can descend to their abodes.

When we begin to examine the G.o.ds of MYTHOLOGY, savage or civilised, as distinct from deities contemplated, in devotion, as moral and creative guardians of ethics, we shall find that, with the general, though not invariable addition of immortality, they possess the very same accomplishments as the medicine-man, peay, tohunga, jossakeed, birraark, or whatever name for sorcerer we may choose. Among the Greeks, Zeus, mythically envisaged, enjoys in heaven all the attributes of the medicine-man; among the Iroquois, as Pere le Jeune, the old Jesuit missionary, observed,(1) the medicine-man enjoys on earth all the attributes of Zeus. Briefly, the miraculous and supernatural endowments of the G.o.ds of MYTH, whether these G.o.ds be zoomorphic or anthropomorphic, are exactly the magical properties with which the medicine-man is credited by his tribe. It does not at all follow, as Euemerus and Mr. Herbert Spencer might argue, that the G.o.d was once a real living medicine-man. But myth-making man confers on the deities of myth the magical powers which he claims for himself.

(1) Relations (1636), p. 114.

CHAPTER V. NATURE MYTHS.

Savage fancy, curiosity and credulity ill.u.s.trated in nature myths--In these all phenomena are explained by belief in the general animation of everything, combined with belief in metamorphosis--Sun myths, Asian, Australian, African, Melanesian, Indian, Californian, Brazilian, Maori, Samoan--Moon myths, Australian, Muysca, Mexican, Zulu, Maca.s.sar, Greenland, Piute, Malay--Thunder myths--Greek and Aryan sun and moon myths--Star myths--Myths, savage and civilised, of animals, accounting for their marks and habits--Examples of custom of claiming blood kins.h.i.+p with lower animals--Myths of various plants and trees--Myths of stones, and of metamorphosis into stones, Greek, Australian and American--The whole natural philosophy of savages expressed in myths, and survives in folk-lore and cla.s.sical poetry; and legends of metamorphosis.

The intellectual condition of savages which has been presented and established by the evidence both of observers and of inst.i.tutions, may now be studied in savage myths. These myths, indeed, would of themselves demonstrate that the ideas which the lower races entertain about the world correspond with our statement. If any one were to ask himself, from what mental conditions do the following savage stories arise? he would naturally answer that the minds which conceived the tales were curious, indolent, credulous of magic and witchcraft, capable of drawing no line between things and persons, capable of crediting all things with human pa.s.sions and resolutions. But, as myths a.n.a.logous to those of savages, when found among civilised peoples, have been ascribed to a psychological condition produced by a disease of language acting after civilisation had made considerable advances, we cannot take the savage myths as proof of what savages think, believe and practice in the course of daily life. To do so would be, perhaps, to argue in a circle. We must therefore study the myths of the undeveloped races in themselves.

These myths form a composite whole, so complex and so nebulous that it is hard indeed to array them in cla.s.ses and categories. For example, if we look at myths concerning the origin of various phenomena, we find that some introduce the action of G.o.ds or extra-natural beings, while others rest on a rude theory of capricious evolution; others, again, invoke the aid of the magic of mortals, and most regard the great natural forces, the heavenly bodies, and the animals, as so many personal characters capable of voluntarily modifying themselves or of being modified by the most trivial accidents. Some sort of arrangement, however, must be attempted, only the student is to understand that the lines are never drawn with definite fixity, that any category may glide into any other category of myth.

We shall begin by considering some nature myths--myths, that is to say, which explain the facts of the visible universe. These range from tales about heaven, day, night, the sun and the stars, to tales accounting for the red breast of the ousel, the habits of the quail, the spots and stripes of wild beasts, the formation of rocks and stones, the foliage of trees, the shapes of plants. In a sense these myths are the science of savages; in a sense they are their sacred history; in a sense they are their fiction and romance. Beginning with the sun, we find, as Mr.

Tylor says, that ”in early philosophy throughout the world the sun and moon are alive, and, as it were, human in their nature”.(1) The ma.s.s of these solar myths is so enormous that only a few examples can be given, chosen almost at random out of the heap. The sun is regarded as a personal being, capable not only of being affected by charms and incantations, but of being trapped and beaten, of appearing on earth, of taking a wife of the daughters of men. Garcila.s.so de la Vega has a story of an Inca prince, a speculative thinker, who was puzzled by the sun-wors.h.i.+p of his ancestors. If the sun be thus all-powerful, the Inca inquired, why is he plainly subject to laws? why does he go his daily round, instead of wandering at large up and down the fields of heaven?

The prince concluded that there was a will superior to the sun's will, and he raised a temple to the Unknown Power. Now the phenomena which put the Inca on the path of monotheistic religion, a path already traditional, according to Garcila.s.so, have also struck the fancy of savages. Why, they ask, does the sun run his course like a tamed beast?

A reply suited to a mind which holds that all things are personal is given in myths. Some one caught and tamed the sun by physical force or by art magic.

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