Custom and Myth 1

Custom and Myth 1

Custom and Myth

 

Author: Andrew Lang

 

INTRODUCTION.

 

 

Though some of the essays in this volume have appeared in various

serials, the majority of them were written expressly for their present

purpose, and they are now arranged in a designed order. During some

years of study of Greek, Indian, and savage mythologies, I have become

more and more impressed with a sense of the inadequacy of the prevalent

method of comparative mythology. That method is based on the belief that

myths are the result of a disease of language, as the pearl is the result

of a disease of the oyster. It is argued that men at some period, or

periods, spoke in a singular style of coloured and concrete language, and

that their children retained the phrases of this language after losing

hold of the original meaning. The consequence was the growth of myths

about supposed persons, whose names had originally been mere

'appellations.' In conformity with this hypothesis the method of

comparative mythology examines the proper names which occur in myths. The

notion is that these names contain a key to the meaning of the story, and

that, in fact, of the story the names are the germs and the oldest

surviving part.

 

The objections to this method are so numerous that it is difficult to

state them briefly. The attempt, however, must be made. To desert the

path opened by the most eminent scholars is in itself presumptuous; the

least that an innovator can do is to give his reasons for advancing in a

novel direction. If this were a question of scholarship merely, it would

be simply foolhardy to differ from men like Max Muller, Adalbert Kuhn,

Breal, and many others. But a revolutionary mythologist is encouraged by

finding that these scholars usually differ from each other. Examples

will be found chiefly in the essays styled 'The Myth of Cronus,' 'A Far-

travelled Tale,' and 'Cupid and Psyche.' Why, then, do distinguished

scholars and mythologists reach such different goals? Clearly because

their method is so precarious. They all analyse the names in myths; but,

where one scholar decides that the name is originally Sanskrit, another

holds that it is purely Greek, and a third, perhaps, is all for an

Accadian etymology, or a Semitic derivation. Again, even when scholars

agree as to the original root from which a name springs, they differ as

much as ever as to the meaning of the name in its present place. The

inference is, that the analysis of names, on which the whole edifice of

philological 'comparative mythology' rests, is a foundation of shifting

sand. The method is called 'orthodox,' but, among those who practise it,

there is none of the beautiful unanimity of orthodoxy.

 

These objections are not made by the unscholarly anthropologist alone.

Curtius has especially remarked the difficulties which beset the

'etymological operation' in the case of proper names. 'Peculiarly

dubious and perilous is mythological etymology. Are we to seek the

sources of the divine names in aspects of nature, or in moral

conceptions; in special Greek geographical conditions, or in natural

circumstances which are everywhere the same: in dawn with her rays, or in

clouds with their floods; are we to seek the origin of the names of

heroes in things historical and human, or in physical phenomena?' {3a}

Professor Tiele, of Leyden, says much the same thing: 'The uncertainties

are great, and there is a constant risk of taking mere jeux d'esprit for

scientific results.' {3b} Every name has, if we can discover or

conjecture it, a meaning. That meaning--be it 'large' or 'small,' 'loud'

or 'bright,' 'wise' or 'dark,' 'swift' or 'slow'--is always capable of

being explained as an epithet of the sun, or of the cloud, or of both.

Whatever, then, a name may signify, some scholars will find that it

originally denoted the cloud, if they belong to one school, or the sun or

dawn, if they belong to another faction. Obviously this process is a

mere jeu d'esprit. This logic would be admitted in no other science,

and, by similar arguments, any name whatever might be shown to be

appropriate to a solar hero.

 

The scholarly method has now been applied for many years, and what are

the results? The ideas attained by the method have been so popularised

that they are actually made to enter into the education of children, and

are published in primers and catechisms of mythology. But what has a

discreet scholar to say to the whole business? 'The difficult task of

interpreting mythical names has, so far, produced few certain results'--so

writes Otto Schrader. {4} Though Schrader still has hopes of better

things, it is admitted that the present results are highly disputable. In

England, where one set of these results has become an article of faith,

readers chiefly accept the opinions of a single etymological school, and

thus escape the difficulty of making up their minds when scholars differ.

But differ scholars do, so widely and so often, that scarcely any solid

advantages have been gained in mythology from the philological method.

 

The method of philological mythology is thus discredited by the disputes

of its adherents. The system may be called orthodox, but it is an

orthodoxy which alters with every new scholar who enters the sacred

enclosure. Even were there more harmony, the analysis of names could

throw little light on myths. In stories the names may well be, and often

demonstrably are, the latest, not the original, feature. Tales, at first

told of 'Somebody,' get new names attached to them, and obtain a new

local habitation, wherever they wander. 'One of the leading personages

to be met in the traditions of the world is really no more than--Somebody.

There is nothing this wondrous creature cannot achieve; one only

restriction binds him at all--that the name he assumes shall have some

sort of congruity with the office he undertakes, _and even from this he

oftentimes breaks loose_.' {5} We may be pretty sure that the adventures

of Jason, Perseus, OEdipous, were originally told only of 'Somebody.' The

names are later additions, and vary in various lands. A glance at the

essay on 'Cupid and Psyche' will show that a history like theirs is

known, where neither they nor their counterparts in the Veda, Urvasi and

Pururavas, were ever heard of; while the incidents of the Jason legend

are familiar where no Greek word was ever spoken. Finally, the names in

common use among savages are usually derived from natural phenomena,

often from clouds, sky, sun, dawn. If, then, a name in a myth can be

proved to mean cloud, sky, sun, or what not (and usually one set of

scholars find clouds, where others see the dawn), we must not instantly

infer that the myth is a nature-myth. Though, doubtless, the heroes in

it were never real people, the names are as much common names of real

people in the savage state, as Smith and Brown are names of civilised

men.

 

For all these reasons, but chiefly because of the fact that stories are

usually anonymous at first, that names are added later, and that stories

naturally crystallise round any famous name, heroic, divine, or human,

the process of analysis of names is most precarious and untrustworthy. A

story is told of Zeus: Zeus means sky, and the story is interpreted by

scholars as a sky myth. The modern interpreter forgets, first, that to

the myth-maker sky did not at all mean the same thing as it means to him.

Sky meant, not an airy, infinite, radiant vault, but a person, and, most

likely, a savage person. Secondly, the interpreter forgets that the tale

(say the tale of Zeus, Demeter, and the mutilated Ram) may have been

originally anonymous, and only later attributed to Zeus, as unclaimed

jests are attributed to Sheridan or Talleyrand. Consequently no heavenly

phenomena will be the basis and explanation of the story. If one thing

in mythology be certain, it is that myths are always changing masters,

that the old tales are always being told with new names. Where, for

example, is the value of a philological analysis of the name of Jason? As

will be seen in the essay 'A Far-travelled Tale,' the analysis of the

name of Jason is fanciful, precarious, disputed, while the essence of his

myth is current in Samoa, Finland, North America, Madagascar, and other

lands, where the name was never heard, and where the characters in the

story have other names or are anonymous.

 

For these reasons, and others too many to be adduced here, I have

ventured to differ from the current opinion that myths must be

interpreted chiefly by philological analysis of names. The system

adopted here is explained in the first essay, called 'The Method of

Folklore.' The name, Folklore, is not a good one, but 'comparative

mythology' is usually claimed exclusively by the philological

interpreters.

 

The second essay, 'The Bull-Roarer,' is intended to show that certain

peculiarities in the Greek mysteries occur also in the mysteries of

savages, and that on Greek soil they are survivals of savagery.

 

'The Myth of Cronus' tries to prove that the first part of the legend is

a savage nature-myth, surviving in Greek religion, while the sequel is a

set of ideas common to savages.

 

'Cupid and Psyche' traces another Aryan myth among savage races, and

attempts to show that the myth may have had its origin in a rule of

barbarous etiquette.

 

'A Far-travelled Tale' examines a part of the Jason myth. This myth

appears neither to be an explanation of natural phenomena (like part of

the Myth of Cronus), nor based on a widespread custom (like Cupid and

Psyche.) The question is asked whether the story may have been diffused

by slow filtration from race to race all over the globe, as there seems

no reason why it should have been invented separately (as a myth

explanatory of natural phenomena or of customs might be) in many

different places.

 

'Apollo and the Mouse' suggests hypothetically, as a possible explanation

of the tie between the God and the Beast, that Apollo-worship superseded,

but did not eradicate, Totemism. The suggestion is little more than a

conjecture.

 

'Star Myths' points out that Greek myths of stars are a survival from the

savage stage of fancy in which such stories are natural.

 

'Moly and Mandragora' is a study of the Greek, the modern, and the

Hottentot folklore of magical herbs, with a criticism of a scholarly and

philological hypothesis, according to which Moly is the dog-star, and

Circe the moon.

 

'The Kalevala' is an account of the Finnish national poem; of all poems

that in which the popular, as opposed to the artistic, spirit is

strongest. The Kalevala is thus a link between Marchen and Volkslieder

on one side, and epic poetry on the other.

 

'The Divining Rod' is a study of a European and civilised superstition,

which is singular in its comparative lack of copious savage analogues.

 

'Hottentot Mythology' is a criticism of the philological method, applied

to savage myth.

 

'Fetichism and the Infinite,' is a review of Mr. Max Muller's theory that

a sense of the Infinite is the germ of religion, and that Fetichism is

secondary, and a corruption. This essay also contains a defence of the

_evidence_ on which the anthropological method relies.

 

The remaining essays are studies of the 'History of the Family,' and of

'Savage Art.'

 

The essay on 'Savage Art' is reprinted, by the kind permission of Messrs.

Cassell & Co., from two numbers (April and May, 1882) of the Magazine of

Art. I have to thank the editors and publishers of the Contemporary

Review, the Cornhill Magazine, and Fraser's Magazine, for leave to

republish 'The Early History of the Family,' 'The Divining Rod,' and

'Star Myths,' and 'The Kalevala.' A few sentences in 'The Bull-Roarer,'

and 'Hottentot Mythology,' appeared in essays in the Saturday Review, and

some lines of 'The Method of Folklore' in the Guardian. To the editors

of those journals also I owe thanks for their courteous permission to

make this use of my old articles.

 

To Mr. E. B. Tylor and Mr. W. R. S. Ralston I must express my gratitude

for the kindness with which they have always helped me in all

difficulties.

 

I must apologise for the controversial matter in the volume. Controversy

is always a thing to be avoided, but, in this particular case, when a

system opposed to the prevalent method has to be advocated, controversy

is unavoidable. My respect for the learning of my distinguished

adversaries is none the less great because I am not convinced by their

logic, and because my doubts are excited by their differences.

 

Perhaps, it should be added, that these essays are, so to speak, only

flint-flakes from a neolithic workshop. This little book merely

skirmishes (to change the metaphor) in front of a much more methodical

attempt to vindicate the anthropological interpretation of myths. But

lack of leisure and other causes make it probable that my 'Key to All

Mythologies' will go the way of Mr. Casaubon's treatise.

 

 

 

 

THE METHOD OF FOLKLORE.

 

 

After the heavy rain of a thunderstorm has washed the soil, it sometimes

happens that a child, or a rustic, finds a wedge-shaped piece of metal or

a few triangular flints in a field or near a road. There was no such

piece of metal, there were no such flints, lying there yesterday, and the

finder is puzzled about the origin of the objects on which he has

lighted. He carries them home, and the village wisdom determines that

the wedge-shaped piece of metal is a 'thunderbolt,' or that the bits of

flint are 'elf-shots,' the heads of fairy arrows. Such things are still

treasured in remote nooks of England, and the 'thunderbolt' is applied to

cure certain maladies by its touch.

 

As for the fairy arrows, we know that even in ancient Etruria they were

looked on as magical, for we sometimes see their points set, as amulets,

in the gold of Etruscan necklaces. In Perugia the arrowheads are still

sold as charms. All educated people, of course, have long been aware

that the metal wedge is a celt, or ancient bronze axe-head, and that it

was not fairies, but the forgotten peoples of this island who used the

arrows with the tips of flint. Thunder is only so far connected with

them that the heavy rains loosen the surface soil, and lay bare its long

hidden secrets.

 

There is a science, Archaeology, which collects and compares the material

relics of old races, the axes and arrow-heads. There is a form of study,

Folklore, which collects and compares the similar but immaterial relics

of old races, the surviving superstitions and stories, the ideas which

are in our time but not of it. Properly speaking, folklore is only

concerned with the legends, customs, beliefs, of the Folk, of the people,

of the classes which have least been altered by education, which have

shared least in progress. But the student of folklore soon finds that

these unprogressive classes retain many of the beliefs and ways of

savages, just as the Hebridean people use spindle-whorls of stone, and

bake clay pots without the aid of the wheel, like modern South Sea

Islanders, or like their own prehistoric ancestors. {11a} The student of

folklore is thus led to examine the usages, myths, and ideas of savages,

which are still retained, in rude enough shape, by the European

peasantry. Lastly, he observes that a few similar customs and ideas

survive in the most conservative elements of the life of educated

peoples, in ritual, ceremonial, and religious traditions and myths.

Though such remains are rare in England, we may note the custom of

leading the dead soldier's horse behind his master to the grave, a relic

of days when the horse would have been sacrificed. {11b} We may observe

the persistence of the ceremony by which the monarch, at his coronation,

takes his seat on the sacred stone of Scone, probably an ancient fetich

stone. Not to speak, here, of our own religious traditions, the old vein

of savage rite and belief is found very near the surface of ancient Greek

religion. It needs but some stress of circumstance, something answering

to the storm shower that reveals the flint arrow-heads, to bring savage

ritual to the surface of classical religion. In sore need, a human

victim was only too likely to be demanded; while a feast-day, or a

mystery, set the Greeks dancing serpent-dances or bear-dances like Red

Indians, or swimming with sacred pigs, or leaping about in imitation of

wolves, or holding a dog-feast, and offering dog's flesh to the gods.

{12} Thus the student of folklore soon finds that he must enlarge his

field, and examine, not only popular European story and practice, but

savage ways and ideas, and the myths and usages of the educated classes

in civilised races. In this extended sense the term 'folklore' will

frequently be used in the following essays. The idea of the writer is

that mythology cannot fruitfully be studied apart from folklore, while

some knowledge of anthropology is required in both sciences.

 

The science of Folklore, if we may call it a science, finds everywhere,

close to the surface of civilised life, the remains of ideas as old as

the stone elf-shots, older than the celt of bronze. In proverbs and

riddles, and nursery tales and superstitions, we detect the relics of a

stage of thought, which is dying out in Europe, but which still exists in

many parts of the world. Now, just as the flint arrow-heads are

scattered everywhere, in all the continents and isles, and everywhere are

much alike, and bear no very definite marks of the special influence of

race, so it is with the habits and legends investigated by the student of

folklore. The stone arrow-head buried in a Scottish cairn is like those

which were interred with Algonquin chiefs. The flints found in Egyptian

soil, or beside the tumulus on the plain of Marathon, nearly resemble the

stones which tip the reed arrow of the modern Samoyed. Perhaps only a

skilled experience could discern, in a heap of such arrow-heads, the

specimens which are found in America or Africa from those which are

unearthed in Europe. Even in the products of more advanced industry, we

see early pottery, for example, so closely alike everywhere that, in the

British Museum, Mexican vases have, ere now, been mixed up on the same

shelf with archaic vessels from Greece. In the same way, if a

superstition or a riddle were offered to a student of folklore, he would

have much difficulty in guessing its _provenance_, and naming the race

from which it was brought. Suppose you tell a folklorist that, in a

certain country, when anyone sneezes, people say 'Good luck to you,' the

student cannot say a priori what country you refer to, what race you have

in your thoughts. It may be Florida, as Florida was when first

discovered; it may be Zululand, or West Africa, or ancient Rome, or

Homeric Greece, or Palestine. In all these, and many other regions, the

sneeze was welcomed as an auspicious omen. The little superstition is as

widely distributed as the flint arrow-heads. Just as the object and use

of the arrow-heads became intelligible when we found similar weapons in

actual use among savages, so the salutation to the sneezer becomes

intelligible when we learn that the savage has a good reason for it. He

thinks the sneeze expels an evil spirit. Proverbs, again, and riddles

are as universally scattered, and the Wolufs puzzle over the same

devinettes as the Scotch schoolboy or the Breton peasant. Thus, for

instance, the Wolufs of Senegal ask each other, 'What flies for ever, and

rests never?'--Answer, 'The Wind.' 'Who are the comrades that always

fight, and never hurt each other?'--'The Teeth.' In France, as we read

in the 'Recueil de Calembours,' the people ask, 'What runs faster than a

horse, crosses water, and is not wet?'--Answer, 'The Sun.' The Samoans

put the riddle, 'A man who stands between two ravenous fishes?'--Answer,

'The tongue between the teeth.' Again, 'There are twenty brothers, each

with a hat on his head?'--Answer, 'Fingers and toes, with nails for

hats.' This is like the French 'un pere a douze fils?'--'l'an.' A

comparison of M. Rolland's 'Devinettes' with the Woluf conundrums of

Boilat, the Samoan examples in Turner's' Samoa,' and the Scotch enigmas

collected by Chambers, will show the identity of peasant and savage

humour.

 

A few examples, less generally known, may be given to prove that the

beliefs of folklore are not peculiar to any one race or stock of men. The

first case is remarkable: it occurs in Mexico and Ceylon--nor are we

aware that it is found elsewhere. In Macmillan's Magazine {15} is

published a paper by Mrs. Edwards, called 'The Mystery of the Pezazi.'

The events described in this narrative occurred on August 28, 1876, in a

bungalow some thirty miles from Badiella. The narrator occupied a new

house on an estate called Allagalla. Her native servants soon asserted

that the place was haunted by a Pezazi. The English visitors saw and

heard nothing extraordinary till a certain night: an abridged account of

what happened then may be given in the words of Mrs. Edwards:--

 

Wrapped in dreams, I lay on the night in question tranquilly sleeping,

but gradually roused to a perception that discordant sounds disturbed

the serenity of my slumber. Loth to stir, I still dozed on, the

sounds, however, becoming, as it seemed, more determined to make

themselves heard; and I awoke to the consciousness that they proceeded

from a belt of adjacent jungle, and resembled the noise that would be

produced by some person felling timber.

 

Shutting my ears to the disturbance, I made no sign, until, with an

__EXPRESSION__ of impatience, E--- suddenly started up, when I laid a

detaining grasp upon his arm, murmuring that there was no need to

think of rising at present--it must be quite early, and the kitchen

cooly was doubtless cutting fire-wood in good time. E--- responded,

in a tone of slight contempt, that no one could be cutting fire-wood

at that hour, and the sounds were more suggestive of felling jungle;

and he then inquired how long I had been listening to them. Now

thoroughly aroused, I replied that I had heard the sounds for some

time, at first confusing them with my dreams, but soon sufficiently

awakening to the fact that they were no mere phantoms of my

imagination, but a reality. During our conversation the noises became

more distinct and loud; blow after blow resounded, as of the axe

descending upon the tree, followed by the crash of the falling timber.

Renewed blows announced the repetition of the operations on another

tree, and continued till several were devastated.

 

It is unnecessary to tell more of the tale. In spite of minute

examinations and close search, no solution of the mystery of the noises,

on this or any other occasion, was ever found. The natives, of course,

attributed the disturbance to the Pezazi, or goblin. No one, perhaps,

has asserted that the Aztecs were connected by ties of race with the

people of Ceylon. Yet, when the Spaniards conquered Mexico, and when

Sahagun (one of the earliest missionaries) collected the legends of the

people, he found them, like the Cingalese, strong believers in the mystic

tree-felling. We translate Sahagun's account of the 'midnight axe':--

 

When so any man heareth the sound of strokes in the night, as if one

were felling trees, he reckons it an evil boding. And this sound they

call youaltepuztli (youalli, night; and tepuztli, copper), which

signifies 'the midnight hatchet.' This noise cometh about the time of

the first sleep, when all men slumber soundly, and the night is still.

The sound of strokes smitten was first noted by the temple-servants,

called tlamacazque, at the hour when they go in the night to make

their offering of reeds or of boughs of pine, for so was their custom,

and this penance they did on the neighbouring hills, and that when the

night was far spent. Whenever they heard such a sound as one makes

when he splits wood with an axe (a noise that may be heard afar off),

they drew thence an omen of evil, and were afraid, and said that the

sounds were part of the witchery of Tezeatlipoca, that often thus

dismayeth men who journey in the night. Now, when tidings of these

things came to a certain brave man, one exercised in war, he drew

near, being guided by the sound, till he came to the very cause of the

hubbub. And when he came upon it, with difficulty he caught it, for

the thing was hard to catch: natheless at last he overtook that which