CHAPTER VII
MYTHS
[819]. Myths represent the savage and half-civilized science of origins, the imaginary construction of the world. From the earliest times men have shown curiosity respecting the origin of the things that lie about them. In the presence of plains and mountains, trees and rivers, sun, moon, and stars, beasts and human beings, they have felt the necessity of accounting for the beginning of all these objects.[1413] This attempt at giving a natural history of the world is in itself a scientific procedure, but in the earlier periods of humanity it naturally attached itself to the hypothesis of superhuman Powers—the production of this variety of mysterious things appeared to demand capacity above that of man. The science and the fancy of early man combined to produce a great mass of theories and stories which to their inventors seemed to be a satisfactory account of the origin of all things.[1414]
[820]. Myths thus furnish an important contribution to the history of early opinion, scientific and religious; in the absence of written records they often offer our only means of information concerning early thought. They describe the origin not only of the physical world but also of communities and social organizations and institutions. They have a noteworthy vitality, lasting from the beginning of human communal life into periods of advanced civilization; and, when adopted by great religious organizations and interwoven into their theories of salvation, they perpetuate to civilized times the ideas of the crude period in which they originated. In many cases they stand side by side, and in sharp contrast, with elevated moral conceptions of the deity, and then have to be harmonized, usually with a great expenditure of exegetical ingenuity, with the higher ideas of society.
[821]. The mythopœic age, in the widest sense of the term, embraces the whole period in which appeal is made, for the explanation of phenomena, to other than natural agencies; but it is generally understood to extend only up to the time when, though a general divine Power is invoked for creation, this is regarded as working solely through the laws of nature.[1415] And within this period the myth-making impulse lasted longer in some directions than in others. In general, the mythical theories concerning the larger processes, as, for example, the creation of the world, received no addition after the establishment of a settled civilization; but after this time even well-advanced communities continued to invent mythical accounts of the origin of customs, institutions, genealogies, and similar facts. Throughout the whole myth-making period a progression may be recognized in the character of the myths: from the earlier animal and human creators we pass to the higher anthropomorphic forms, the great gods; there is increased literary excellence, a molding and a remolding of the old crude stories, with a combination of them into well-ordered histories; they are constantly modified by the growing acquaintance with the laws of nature and by the higher intellectual conceptions of the deity; and they are more and more infused with ethical significance.
[822]. An examination of myths all over the world shows that the most of them, especially those relating to creation and to the histories of the gods, originated at a period when men stood intellectually and morally on a very low plane.[1416] The first myth-makers were savages, with all the well-known characteristics of savage life. Having next to no knowledge of natural law, and holding to a practical identity of nature among men, beasts, and physical things, they had no difficulty in imagining all sorts of transformations and creative procedures. No limit was conceived of for the power of beasts and men—there was no object in heaven or earth which, according to the current ideas, could not have been produced by some procedure which was similar to the procedures of ordinary life. The ethical character of the creators and of the introducers of general culture was that of the communities that imagined them; naturally the stories were full of ethical barbarities and violations of all the moral rules recognized at a later period; and, as is remarked above, these stories continued into civilized times, and had to be interpreted by various devices.
[823]. One of the most noteworthy facts in the history of mythology is the general similarity of the myths that are found all over the world. Allowing for continuous moral and intellectual progress and for local differences of surroundings, it may be said that the theories of the production of the earth and the heavenly bodies, of man and other objects, of customs and institutions, show substantially the same types everywhere. The question has been raised whether this virtual identity is to be explained by the supposition of independent origination at various points, or is to be attributed to a borrowing by one community from another. The question of the migration of myths is a part of the larger question of the migration of culture, and is attended with all the difficulties that attach to this latter. It is not possible at present to give an answer which shall embrace all the phenomena. Obviously any satisfactory solution of the problem must be preceded by a thorough examination of all particular myths, all social characteristics, and all geographical and migratory relations affecting the early communities; and on these points there is yet much to learn.
[824]. It is well known that customs and beliefs have sometimes passed from one tribe or nation to another, when there has been close social intercourse between the two. It is known also that early men were capable of long journeys by land and by water: the migration legends of various peoples are full of the details of such movements; in comparatively recent times there have been great migrations of large bodies of people, as, for example, from the Arabian desert to the north and northwest, and from the central Asiatic steppes westward and eastward; and the tribes of the Pacific Ocean appear to have traversed long distances in their canoes. And when we consider the great lapse of time, many thousands of years, that preceded the formation of the human society with which we are acquainted, it appears to be impossible to assign any limit to the possibility of tribal movements on the face of the earth. On the other hand, we do not know whether, or how far, such migrations issued in social fusion; and all the well-attested cases of borrowing of customs and ideas have sprung from long-continued social union.
[825]. Further, a distinction must be made between general resemblances and minute agreement or complete identity; there may be a similarity so great as to force on us the hypothesis of imitation, and there may be general similarities that may be ascribed to ordinary human thought working in different places under similar conditions. In fact, the conditions of existence have not varied very greatly over the globe. There are differences of climate and soil and surface-configuration, but everywhere there have been the sky with the heavenly bodies, the sequence of day and night, sunshine and rain, hunting and fishing, trees, rivers, beasts and birds, and the cultivable soil; and as man's problem was everywhere the same—namely, how to put himself into good relation with his surroundings—and as his intellectual equipment was everywhere substantially the same, it would not be surprising if he should fall on similar methods of thought and procedure independently in various parts of the world. It was natural to early man to think of the sun as a ball of fire which had somehow been thrown up into the sky, and of the moon as associated with the sun as sister or wife or husband, and of the stars as children of these two. For creative agents early man had to look to the beings about him, particularly to beasts, birds, and insects. The process of creation was simple—the story usually amounts merely to saying that such and such a beast or other being made this or that object; and there is very rarely, if ever, a conception of an absolute beginning; almost always a reconstruction of existing material is assumed.
[826]. Both explanations of the resemblances in myths, it thus appears, are reasonable in themselves, and every case must be considered separately. That a community has borrowed one story does not prove borrowing in the case of any other story; and that a people has been a center of distribution of certain myths does not prove that it was the originator of all myths. These two propositions appear to be self-evident, but they have often been ignored in discussions of the provenance of mythical material.[1417]
[827]. The similarities in myths all over the world extend over the whole domain of religion. Myths may be divided into those which deal with the creation of the world and of man (cosmogonic), those which deal with the origins of tribes and nations (ethnogonic), those which refer to the origin of customs and institutions (sociogonic), and those which are based on the forms and movements of the heavenly bodies, clouds, winds, and so forth (solar, lunar, procellar, and so forth).
[828]. Cosmogonic myths.[1418] Among early tribes the creators are very often familiar animals, such as the coyote, the raven, the hare (North America), the wagtail (among the Ainu), the grasshopper (among the Bushmen)—in general, whatever animals appear to the men of a particular tribe to show skill and power. Reference is made above to the reasons which led early men to pay such high regard to the lower animals.[1419] But in more advanced savage communities the creative function is ascribed to a man, as among the Thompson River Indians and in Southeast Australia; in Central Australia the authors of creation or of the arrangement of things are beings who are indifferently men or animals, but are regarded as the ancestors of the tribes. In the higher religions the creators are nature gods and great gods, and finally the one God stands alone as creator.
[829]. The act of creation is commonly represented as a process. Mud is brought up from a pool, or an island is raised from the sea (the Maoris, the Redmen), and these are stretched out so as to meet the needs of men; or a dragon or a giant is cut to pieces and the various parts of the universe are made from the pieces (Babylonia, India, Scandinavia); or, in still later times, an unformed mass of water is conceived of as the original state out of which all things are fashioned (Babylonians, Hebrews, Hindus, Greeks); or the universe issues from an egg (the origin of the egg being left unexplained),[1420] or the earth is represented as the mother of all things (California). Elaborate cosmogonies are found in New Zealand (the Maoris), in North America (the Pawnees, the Lenâpé, and so forth), in Australia, and elsewhere. An interesting example is the Californian Achomāwi cosmogony. In the beginning, according to this scheme, were only the sea and the sky, and from the sky came down the Creator; or a cloud, at first tiny, grew large, condensed, and became the Silver-Gray Fox, the Creator, and out of a fog, which in like manner was condensed, came the Coyote, and these two made the earth and man.[1421]
[830]. In all these cases the creation is out of already existing material[1422] and the creator is really a culture-hero or transformer, a character that clings to deities in the most advanced religions, as the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek. The character of these early transformers and creators is that of the communities in which they originate. Morally they represent both the higher and the lower sides of life, and this is true in all periods—the Hindu Indra is as tricksy and unmoral as the North American Coyote, and the early form of Zeus resembles these and other savage figures.[1423] The conceptions of the creator grew more and more ethically good, but the lower representations continued to exist side by side with the higher.[1424]
[831]. It is not altogether strange that the two sorts of creative Powers should be early thought of as mutually antagonistic. The Maidu bad creator is constantly opposing and bringing to naught the work of his good rival, and their collision produces the actual state of things on the earth.[1425] It is probably by way of explanation of the evil in the world that in this myth the bad Coyote finally overcomes his rival. The resemblance of this scheme to the Mazdean dualism, except in the outcome, is obvious. For a full account of these systems we must await further information; but at present there is no ground for holding that the similarity is due to borrowing.
[832]. In various early cosmogonies the representation is found of an earlier race or an early world that had been destroyed, sometimes by a flood (Babylonia, India, Greece, Polynesia, North America, South America), sometimes in other ways.[1426] Flood stories probably arise from local inundations, and may therefore have been constructed independently in various regions. In some cases the general conditions favor the supposition of distribution from one point: it seems probable, for example, that the Babylonian flood story was adopted by the Canaanites and from them by the Hebrews (the supposition of common descent from an original Semitic myth is made improbable by the closeness of resemblance between the Babylonian and Hebrew forms); it may have passed to India, but the Hindu story may be accounted for from local conditions. But we know of no such intercourse between the Americas, Polynesia, and Western Asia, as would suggest a migration of the myth from the latter to the two former, though this is conceivable.
[833]. The origin of man is included in that of the world. He is made from clay or wooden figures or stones, or, as in Australia, out of a shapeless mass. The conception found in various parts of the world, that the present race of men was preceded by another, appears to be due sometimes to a real, though often confused, tradition of an earlier population, sometimes to a vague conception of the conflict and incompleteness in the world. Traditions of predecessors are found in various parts of the world. In North America—as, for example, among the Navahos—a part of the early history is the conflict with certain mighty and evil beings who made good life impossible—a semidualistic scheme.[1427] This view comes from the general disposition to conceive of the past as the time of mightier agencies, good and bad, than now exist.
[834]. A not uncommon representation is that man was originally not mortal, or that it was a question whether or not he should be mortal (death being generally regarded by early man as an abnormal event, produced by supernatural agency). In such cases mortality is brought about by an accident or an error: among the Maoris by a mistake of the hero Maui;[1428] among the Hebrews by the disobedience of the first man, or by his failure to eat of the tree of life; in South Africa by the accident that the messenger who was to announce immortality was outrun by one who announced mortality.[1429]
[835]. The belief that the earliest men were longer-lived and of larger stature than their successors is found among certain peoples.[1430] Of the origin of this belief in ancient times we have no accounts. It may have been suggested by various objects supposed to be remains of men, or it may have been due simply to a tendency to conceive of the beginners of human society as superior beings (dedivinized gods). The Hebrew tradition ascribed great age to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, on a generally descending scale; the longevity of the antediluvians is perhaps a speculative continuation of the series back of Abraham on an ascending scale, though special mythical traits here come in.
Connected with the general belief in the superiority of early conditions of life is the belief in a primitive earthly paradise; the history of this conception is not clear, but in some cases the paradise appears to have been the delightful abode of a deity, into which human beings were for various reasons admitted, or the primeval fair and happy earth.[1431]
[836]. The belief that the world or the existing order is to be destroyed appears to be connected with the conception of history as involving a cycle of ages, and the theory of ages may have arisen from the tradition or the knowledge of social and political revolutions, the rise of each new phase of civilization involving the destruction of its predecessor. Traditions of past cataclysms may have helped toward the formulation of an expectation of coming destruction. This expectation, generalized under the influence of belief in a final judgment of men by God, would lead to the announcement of a final destruction of the present world. This destruction, which ushers in a new age, is accomplished in various ways, sometimes by water, wind, or fire,[1432] sometimes by supernatural enemies.[1433] The Hindu and the Persian schemes of successive ages are relatively late theological constructions, but they are based on the older idea that present things must have an end.[1434] The Navaho series of five worlds represents, apparently, nothing but traditions of social changes, interspersed with minor ætiologic myths.[1435]
[837]. Many other cosmogonic details, common to various peoples, might be added. Transformation from human to animal or mineral forms and the reverse are to be found, as we have seen, everywhere. The slaying of dragons by gods or heroes is often connected with creation, but belongs sometimes in the category of cultural or nature myths. Abnormal forms of birth and generation may be sometimes products of savage fancy, or they may be attempts to set forth the mysterious or the supernatural in certain beings, or they may be nature myths: in various mythologies a god or a hero is born from the side or the thigh or the head of the mother or the father; fecundation by other means than sexual union appears in North America, Egypt, Greece, and generally in savage tribes.[1436] The representation of the primeval parents, Heaven and Earth, as having been originally united in a close embrace and then separated, Heaven being lifted up and Earth remaining below, is so remarkable that it might be doubted whether it arose independently in different places; yet, as it is found in New Zealand,[1437] in Egypt,[1438] in India,[1439] among the Masai of Eastern Central Africa,[1440] and as the supposition of borrowing for these widely separated communities would be difficult (except, perhaps, as between Egypt and the Masai land), it is simpler to regard the myth as a natural effort of early science.[1441] It need hardly be added that with all the similarities in the various cosmogonic systems the diversities among different peoples are as numerous as the differences of surroundings and character.
[838]. Among most early communities the great figures of the past (creations of imagination) to whom are ascribed the introduction of the arts of life and the general betterment of society are regarded as demigods, descended from parents one of whom is divine and the other human; it is sometimes the father, sometimes the mother, that is divine.[1442] This conception is a simple and natural explanation of the supposed extraordinary powers of the personages in question. A more refined conception represents man as receiving life from the breath of God,[1443] whence easily comes the idea that man is the child of God and has in him a spark of divinity.
[839]. Ethnogonic myths. Early science has to account not only for the origin of the world and the human race, but also for the origin of particular tribes and their surroundings. The area involved is the known world, which among savage peoples is small in extent but increases with knowledge, the general method of accounting for social division remaining, however, the same. As a rule, the center of the distribution of mankind is the territory of the particular tribe in which the myth originates. There is always the conviction, expressed or implied, that the tribe in question is the center of the world and the favorite of the creative Power;[1444] it being established in its place, the rest of the world is divided among other tribes—a conception that survives among civilized peoples of antiquity.[1445]
[840]. The ethnogonic history generally takes the form of a genealogy—every tribe or other group is derived from a mythical ancestor, who among savages is frequently a beast, or half-beast half-human, or even in some cases a rock or a stone. Familiar examples are the genealogical systems of the Australians, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Samoans, the American Indians;[1446] but the conception appears to be universal. There was indeed no other natural way of accounting for the origin of a tribe: as an existing family would reckon its beginning from the grandfather, so the tribe would come from some remote person, and so at a later time the nation, and then finally the human race. As there were no historical records of such beginning, the scientific imagination of early peoples constructed the first parents in various ways, often by personifying the tribe and transferring its name to the mythical ancestor. It is in this way that the genealogical lists of the post-Mohammedan Arabians arose; it is certain that they had no records of the past extending further than a few generations, and in some cases the origins of the names in genealogical lists may be fixed. The Greek method of naming ancestors is simple and obvious: the sons of Hellen are Dorus, Xuthus, Æolus; the sons of Xuthus are Achæus and Ion; and these are all descended from Deucalion. In like manner the Pelasgians are carried back to the ancestor Pelasgus, and the Peloponnesians to Pelops. The Roman Romulus, Remulus, Remus, are natural inventions based on the name of the city.
[841]. Genealogical elaboration was carried out more fully by the Hebrews than by any other ancient people. Not only were tribal names, Jacob, Israel, Judah, Joseph, Ephraim, and the rest, personified, but they were arranged in a well-shaped family system; and, the same method being applied to all the nations known to them, these were carried up to the three sons of Noah, and finally through Noah up to the first man, whose Hebrew name, Adam, means simply man.[1447] The table of nations in Genesis x is a remarkable example of ethnographic organization. As it is based on geographical relations, it does not in all particulars accord with modern ethnological schemes, but it is a noteworthy attempt to embrace the whole world in a family picture. The view that the division of the earth among the various peoples revolved around the Israelite territory is expressed in the poem cited above,[1448] which is of the seventh century B.C., and it may be inferred that this large genealogical unification was completed among the Israelites at a time when they felt the influence of the great Assyrian civilization, with which they seem to have come into somewhat intimate contact. Later examples are found in Vergil's Æneid and Milton's "History of Britain" (in which he adopts early attempts at genealogical construction).
[842]. Sociogonic myths. Most of the customs and institutions of early peoples go back to a time when there were no records, and their introduction was naturally referred, so soon as reflection thereon began, to gods and heroes of primeval time.
[843]. The arts of life are commonly explained in this mythical way. The beginnings of agriculture are referred in Melanesia to the Little One or to Qat, in Mexico to the god or culture-hero Quetzalcoatl, in Peru to Viracocha or Pachacamac, or to Manco Capac and his wife. For the Algonkins Michabo, the Great Hare, was the teacher of fishing and of other pursuits.[1449] The Babylonian god Ea was the instructor of his people in all the arts of civilization.[1450] In the Old Testament Cainite (Kenite) genealogy the originators of pastoral life, of metal-working, and of music, are the ancient ancestors.[1451] In the Book of Enoch the employment of metals, the use of writing, and in general all the early arts of civilization are ascribed to the fallen angels, whose children are represented in the Book of Genesis[1452] as the culture-heroes of the olden time. The introduction of writing into Greece is ascribed by the Greeks to the mythical hero or demigod Cadmus.[1453] Fire is in India the production of the god Agni[1454] (who is simply fire elevated to the rank of a personal divinity); in the Greek myth it is stolen and given to men by the demigod Prometheus[1455] against the will of the gods, who are jealous of human progress.[1456] Among various savage tribes there are similar histories of the derivation of the use of fire from superhuman beings.[1457]
[844]. Early ceremonies, as we have seen,[1458] are universally connected with religion, and their origin is ascribed to divine or semi-divine figures of the past. In Australia the initiation ceremonies, which take up a great part of the tribal life, are regarded as having been established by the mythical ancestors.[1459] Among the Hebrews when circumcision, an early initiation ceremony,[1460] became religiously important, its establishment was referred to the ancestor Abraham, who is said to have acted by direct command of God,[1461] but in earlier documents there are hints of other origins for the rite.[1462] The ritual dances of the North American Indians, which are very elaborate, are accompanied by explanations in which the origin of every detail is referred to some event or person in the supernatural past;[1463] and similar explanations are given of the dances of Mexico.[1464] In many cases the restrictions of food and other things are ascribed to the experiences of the ancestors or to the commands of deities: the Hebrew usage of not eating a certain sinew is connected with the story of the struggle between Jacob and a divine being.[1465]
[845]. Festivals also were treated in this manner as soon as men began to reflect on the origin of society. As one feature in the festival sacred to Mars (March 1) was the dancing of the priests who carried curious shields, it was narrated, to account for this, that the shield of Mars fell down from heaven;[1466] and the goddess Maia, according to one conjecture, was invented to explain the name of the month of May.[1467] A Greek explanation of the fact that children at a later period were not called by the mother's name was that in the contest between Poseidon and Athene for the control of the city of Athens the latter deity prevailed by the votes of the women, who were in the majority, and to appease the wrath of Poseidon this rule was then made by the men.[1468] The Gileadite festival in which maidens lamented the death of the daughter of Jephthah[1469] was doubtless an old rite in which the death of some divinity was bewailed. The Greek Boedromia was referred to the succor given by Theseus against the Amazons,[1470] and in the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries ætiological myths connected with Demeter, Kore, and Dionysos formed the central part of the proceedings.[1471] In the Old Testament the spring festival (Passover) is connected with the departure of the people from Egypt, and the autumn festival (Tabernacles) with the sojourn in the wilderness; and by the later Jews the midsummer festival (the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost) was similarly brought into connection with the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.
[846]. Relation between myth and ritual. The question whether myth comes from ritual or ritual from myth has been much discussed. Obviously universal precedence cannot be allowed to either of the two. There are cases in which primary mythical beliefs determine the form of religious procedure: the belief, for example, that a god, as anthropomorphic divine patron, must be placated and provided with all the accessories of a potentate, leads to the offering of food and other gifts and to the establishment of abodes and attendants; the sense of his aloofness and of his powerful and dangerous qualities induces cautionary rules for approach to his presence; because he has manlike intellectual and emotional limitations his favor must be secured by prayers and praises; if he has a son, this latter may act as mediator between his father and a suppliant, or one god may mediate with others in behalf of men.[1472] On the other hand, there are many examples of myths that arise as explanation of ritualistic details.[1473] It is sometimes hard to say on which side the precedence in time lies. In general, it seems, it is from broader and fundamental mythical conceptions that ritual arises, while mythical narratives spring from particular ritualistic observances.
[847]. Important religious changes which have come to pass through natural changes of thought, usually by the movement toward greater refinement, are explained as having been introduced by some great reformer. The abrogation of human sacrifice was a reform of great moment: in Mexico it is ascribed to the god Quetzalcoatl,[1474] and in the Old Testament to Abraham acting by command of God.[1475] One of the Incas of Peru is said to have reached monotheistic views by a process of reasoning, and the post-Biblical Jewish myths ascribed the same achievement to Abraham.[1476]
[848]. As a rule sacred places were connected with stories of the presence of divine personages or mythical ancestors. In Samoa, the Hawaian group, and other Pacific Islands many stones are connected with stories of heroes, spirits, or gods.[1477] In Central Australia every stone, rock, or tree has its myth of the half-bestial ancestors.[1478] In Greece, as Pausanias relates, there was hardly a place that did not have its story of the origin of some sacred spot or thing due to a god.[1479] In the earlier books of the Old Testament the sacred places, which were Arabian or Canaanite shrines adopted by the Hebrews, are generally connected with the presence of the patriarchs or other great men. The magical qualities of springs, pools, and other bodies of water are explained by stories in which a god or other divine person descends into them, or in some other way communicates power.[1480]
[849]. Myths of heavenly bodies, winds, and vegetation. As the sun, the moon, and other objects of nature were regarded as anthropomorphic persons and naturally came into relation with men, their imagined adventures have produced a great mass of stories in all parts of the world. These stories are partly attempts to account for phenomena and partly are simply products of fancy; the myth-maker is very often a mere story-teller. The sun, conceived of usually as an old man, is supposed to live in a house up in the sky, to have his wife and children, to receive visitors, and to interfere to some extent in human affairs. An eclipse was obviously to be regarded as the work of an enemy of the sun, usually a dragon (so in many low tribes, and in India). A great excess of heat on the earth might be explained by the supposition that the chariot of the sun had been driven too near the surface.[1481] The waning of the moon was supposed to be due to her sorrow at the loss of her children, the stars, which were devoured by the sun. The moon might be a fair woman who becomes enamored of a human being. At a later time in the progress of astronomical knowledge the planets and certain of the stars were individualized—they became actors in human history or, still later, the abode of supernatural beings.[1482]
[850]. The beginnings of astrological theory are probably to be recognized at a very early period. The height of the sky above the earth, the persistence with which the stars seem to look down on men, the invariability of their courses, the mysteriousness of their origin would naturally lead to the belief that they had some control over human affairs. Meteors, regarded as falling stars, have always been objects of dread. The development of astrology has been due to the increase of astronomical knowledge and to the tendency to organize religion in its aspect of dependence on the supernatural Powers.[1483]
[851]. Winds have played a less prominent part in theistic history than the heavenly bodies, but have given rise to not a few myths in religions of different grades of culture and in different parts of the world.[1484] In the Scandinavian myths the storm wind as a representative of the prevailing climatic condition has assumed special prominence. In the Iliad when a messenger is dispatched to the abode of the winds to secure their aid, these are found feasting like a human family.[1485] Later, winds are, of course, subordinated to the great gods.
[852]. From time to time theories have arisen explaining many deities and heroes as representatives of the heavenly bodies, and many stories of gods and heroes as reflecting the phenomena of the sky or the air. Such theories have been carried so far sometimes as to explain everything in mythology as a solar or lunar or astral myth. These constructions leave much to the fancy, and it is not difficult to find in mythical narratives references to the movements of the sun or the moon or the stars or the winds. It is possible that such reference really exists in certain stories. It is probable also that simple myths representing such phenomena have been in later times elaborated and brought into connection with a more detailed astronomical knowledge. The same principles of interpretation should guide us here as are referred to above.
[853]. There are doubtless cases in which a hero or a god represents the sun or the moon, the correspondence between the adventures of the hero and the movements of the heavenly bodies being plain. The twelve labors of Heracles may represent the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac; but if this be the case, it is certain that such construction was relatively late, and that the separate adventures must be referred to some more simple facts. If Heracles slays the Hydra, it is more natural to regard this as having represented originally some mundane phenomenon of nature or some simple conflict of the savage life. The same thing is probably true of the adventures of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, who is sometimes considered to be the original of Heracles. Nothing is easier than to expound the story of Samson in the Old Testament as a series of solar and other phenomena,[1486] but the probability is that he embodies the vague recollections of early tribal adventures, and, notwithstanding his name (which means 'solar,' that is, devoted to the sun), there is no good ground for supposing that his history has been astronomically worked over. A similar remark applies to many discussions respecting various deities, Hindu (as Indra), Egyptian (as Osiris), Semitic (as Nergai, Marduk, Nabu), and Greek (as Apollo). In all such cases it is necessary to inquire first whether the explanation of the myth may not be found naturally in some ordinary human experience or some very simple natural phenomenon, and a line of demarcation must be drawn between original forms of the myth and later learned constructions.
[854]. Another source of mythical narration is the history of vegetation, which at the present time has largely supplanted the solar theory. The amazing spectacle of the decay and revival of vegetation, naturally referred to superhuman power, and the importance of plants for human life, have led to the construction of stories (sometimes founded on ritual) in which the adventures of the spirit of vegetation are recounted. Obviously there is a sound basis for this view. The earth was necessarily regarded as the mother from whom came the corn and wine that supported human life. The study of the relatively modern European ceremonies[1487] has brought out the persistence of such an idea, and the similarity between the new ceremonies and the old may be said to have demonstrated the existence of an early cult of the divine Power controlling vegetation.
[855]. The Asian Magna Mater and the Greek Mother (Demeter) or Maiden (Kore, Persephone) are identical in function with the corn maiden of modern times, and the latter figure may be a degraded or socialized descendant of an early deity. When we add that ancient local deities all took account of the products of the soil, it will not seem improbable that a great mass of stories should have arisen describing the adventures of the Spirit of Vegetation.[1488] The descent of a hero or a god into Hades may be explained as the passage of the sun from its summer warmth to its winter feebleness, or as the annual death and revival of vegetation. Which of these views shall be adopted will depend in any case on the particular coloring of the story, on the signification of the names involved, or on the ceremonies accompanying the worship. It is not now possible to frame a theory that shall embrace all possible phenomena.
[856]. Certain great myths have in the course of time taken on elaborate literary form, and in this form show traces of advanced thought on some fundamental questions. Such myths occur among half-civilized peoples. There is, for example, the great mythical cosmogony of the Maoris of New Zealand—a scheme seemingly so philosophic in form that it excites wonder as to how it could have arisen in such a place.[1489] The story of the adventures of Maui, a general Polynesian figure, constitutes a Polynesian history of the rise of civilization. Among the North American Indians the mythological systems of the Algonkins, the Pawnees, and other tribes, include the origin of all forms of natural objects and all institutions of society. The histories of the Great Hare of the Lenâpé, the Thunder Bird of the West, and the various transformers or culture-heroes, are scarcely less elaborate than the New Zealand stories. The mythologies of the Finns also (given in the Kalevala) are noteworthy. Passing to higher forms, it is sufficient to note the suggestive story of Balder among the Scandinavians, and, in the ancient world, the Egyptian Osiris myth, the Great Dragon myth of the Babylonian cosmogony, the various forms of the story of a primeval paradise, and the ceremonies and ideas that have arisen in connection with the death of a god.
[857]. The motif of the antagonism between light and darkness appears to be attached to or involved in certain myths, especially the great cosmogonies and stories in which solar deities figure prominently. The original unformed mass of matter is often, perhaps generally, conceived of as being in darkness, and its transformation is attended with the appearance of light[1490]—light is an essential element in the conditions that make earthly human life possible; in contrast with the Upperworld the Underworld is dark. The diffusion of light is a main function of the sun, and the high gods dwell in continual brightness.[1491] Light is the symbol of right, security, and happiness. But it is doubtful whether the expression of the antithesis and conflict of light and darkness is the immediate object of the early portraitures of deities and the mythical narratives of creation and the future of the world. The Egyptian Ra has no conflict with darkness, and the struggle between Osiris (and Horus) and Set, while it may be and often is interpreted in this sense, is susceptible of other interpretations. The motif in the Babylonian cosmogony is the bringing of order out of disorder, in which work the creation of light is an incident. In ethically advanced religious systems, such as the Hindu and the Persian, the good Powers are connected with light and the wicked Powers with darkness, but a conflict between these adjuncts is not brought out clearly. No such conflict appears in Greek mythology. Where a supernatural being intervenes in defense of light (as when a god destroys a dragon-creature who attempts to swallow the sun), this is simply an explanation of a physical phenomenon, and not a conflict between light and darkness.
[858]. The theory, widely held, that a great body of early myths, including the conception of the characters and functions of many deities, represent the struggle between light and darkness, is, therefore, not sustained by the facts. Such a generalization is found in late philosophic systems, but it does not belong to early religious thought, which deals with concrete personal agents.[1492] A conflict between two gods is often to be explained as the rivalry of two districts or of two forms of culture. Attacks on luminous bodies, or defenses of them, are common as ætiological myths, and an antagonism between light and darkness then naturally appears, as is observed above, as an accessory or incident, but not as an immediate object of mythical portraiture. The closeness of the relation between the light-and-darkness theory and the solar theory of myths is obvious.
[859]. Myth and legend. In the course of the formulation of myths they have naturally become mingled with legend. As they narrate the achievements of the great supernatural figures of the past, these achievements have often become blended in the twilight of tradition with actual (though embellished) experiences of the clan or tribe and of the great men therewith connected.[1493] In such cases it is generally difficult to decide where legend ends and myth begins, and every story must be investigated separately, and its nature determined from what is known of the real history of the time and of the development of mythical ideas. Familiar examples of this combination of legend and myth appear in connection with the Homeric poems, certain Asian and Greek cults, and the early histories of Greece and Rome and Israel.[1494] The elucidation of such narratives must be left to the technical investigator in the various historical periods. In general, it may be said, there is enough historical material to enable us to trace the development of tribes and nations with a fair degree of certainty; and the caution already expressed against excessive mythological interpretation is especially in place in such researches.[1495]
The material published under the general title of "folk-lore" consists of various elements—purely religious usages and ideas, mythical and legendary narratives, and fanciful stories. As the term, defined precisely, refers only to popular survivals from defunct religious systems, its material shows a constant process of modification from generation to generation by newer ideas. The mythical element, extricated from the general mass, must be treated in accordance with the general principles of the criticism of myths.[1496]
[860]. Mythical biographies. As gods and heroes are the actors in mythical constructions of society, the stories in such constructions generally assume the form of anecdotal biographies of these personages. Such sketches gather fresh material from generation to generation, are gradually worked up into literary shape, and, being brought into connection with historical traditions, assume historical form, and are then sometimes accepted in their homes and elsewhere as historical.[1497] As they embody the ideas of the times in which they originate, they have, in so far, historical and psychological value. Charm of style has given some of these stories literary value, and they have been accepted as part of the literary treasure of the world. They are sometimes combinations or fusions of myth and legend, and these two elements are not always easily distinguishable the one from the other.[1498]
[861]. In questions that touch the original nature of a god the possible difference between earlier and later conceptions of him must, of course, be borne in mind. When a deity has been definitely shaped and has become a patron of a community, he may be identified by the people, or particularly by poets and priests, with any object or idea that is of special interest to the community. The baals of the agricultural Canaanites presided over irrigation, but were not specifically underground gods;[1499] they were rather general divine patrons interested in all that interested the people. A solar deity, becoming the favorite god of an agricultural community, may be regarded as connected with vegetation; or a god of vegetation may be associated, in astronomical circles, with the sun. A divine figure is often composite, the product of the coalescence of several orders of ideas. In general it may be said that the simplest and least socially refined function of a god is likely to indicate his original character. We must go behind the conceptions of cultivated times to the hints given in popular observances and poetry.
[862]. Interpretation of myths. For savage and half-civilized communities, and for the masses in civilized times, the stories of the achievements and adventures of gods, heroes, and ancestors, accepted as history, have been and are sources of enjoyment and of intellectual impulse. Narrated by fathers to their families, and recited or sung by professional orators and poets to groups and crowds throughout the land,[1500] they have been expanded and handed down from generation to generation, receiving from every generation the coloring of its experiences and ideas, and in the course of time have taken literary shape under the hands of men of genius, and have been committed to writing. For the early times they not only formed a body of historical literature, but also, since they described relations between men and gods, came to be somewhat vague yet real sacred scriptures of the people.[1501] As such, being regarded simply as statements of facts, they needed no outside interpretation; and being molded by human experience, they carried with them such moral and religious instruction as grew naturally out of the situations described. A more highly cultivated age, dissatisfied with bald facts, desired to find in the stories the wisdom of the fathers, and the imagination of poets and philosophers was long occupied with discovering and expounding their deeper meanings till further research set aside such attempts as useless. The treatment of mythical material thus shows three stadia: the acceptance of myths as genuine history; esoteric explanations of their assumed profound teachings; and finally, return to their original character as primitive science, having their origin in crude conceptions of life. A brief sketch may show how the interpretation of myths has come to be regarded as an historical and sociological science.
[863]. Ancient interpretations of myths. When the progress of thought, especially in Greece, made it impossible to accept the current beliefs concerning gods and their doings, it was felt necessary to put some higher meaning into them—they were rationalized and spiritualized by a process of allegorization. This process seems to have begun in Greece as early as the sixth century B.C.[1502] It was the philosophers who undertook to reinterpret the Homeric mythical material, and the extent to which this procedure had been carried in the time of Plato is indicated by the fact that he ridicules these modes of dealing with the poet.[1503] But Homer maintained his place in literature, and the demand for a spiritualizing of his works increased rather than diminished. A science of allegory was created, Pergamus became one of its chief centers,[1504] and the Alexandrian Jew Philo applied the method to the interpretation of the Pentateuch. It was speedily adopted in the Christian world, and has there maintained itself, though in diminishing extent, up to the present day.[1505] As a serious interpretation of ancient myths, outside of the Old Testament, it is no longer employed. Myths are, indeed, important as reflecting early opinions, religious and other—good doctrinal matter may be extracted from them, but this must not be ascribed to the intention of their authors and reporters. In the Old Testament itself the Jewish editors have socialized the mythical material (weaving it into the history, as in Genesis), or have brought it under the work of the national deity.
[864]. Recent interpretations. In recently proposed interpretations we may note first certain attempts at a unification of some body of myths or of all known mythical material. These attempts, almost without exception, take the sky and the heavenly bodies as their basis.
At the end of the eighteenth century, when the theory of human unity had taken hold of the French revolutionists, C. F. Dupuis[1506] undertook to explain all the cults of the world as having come from the worship of the universe—a conception broad enough to cover everything; but he practically reduces it to the worship of the heavenly bodies, particularly the sun, and derives all myths from stellar objects. His work is ingenious, learned, and suggestive, but in his day the facts of ancient mythology were insufficiently known.
[865]. In the next century the study of Sanskrit and Old Persian widened the field of knowledge, the science of Indo-European grammar was created, and on this followed attempts at the construction of an Indo-European mythology. The first definitely formulated unification was the theory of F. Max Müller,[1507] which derived all Aryan (Indo-European) myths from phenomena of the sun and the dawn, largely, he held, through misunderstandings of the meaning of old descriptive terms (myths as a "disease of language"). It is conceivable that a word, originally used simply as descriptive of an actual fact, may have passed into a proper name and become personalized and the center of adventures; but the character of early man's thought, as we now know it, makes it impossible to regard such a view as a probable explanation of the mass of mythological material. Müller's services to the science of the history of religions were great, but his theory of the origin of myths has now been generally abandoned.[1508]
[866]. The great discoveries of literary material made in Egypt and Babylonia since the middle of the nineteenth century have aroused special interest in the religions of these countries. Leadership in ancient civilization is claimed by Egyptologists and Assyriologists, each party for its own land. It is, however, Babylonia that has given rise to the largest theories of the unity of myths—a fact due in part to its development of astronomy, in part, perhaps, to the resemblance between the Babylonian mythical material and that of the Old Testament. Dupuis[1509] had observed that the ancient Chaldeans taught that the heavenly bodies controlled mundane destinies, and, according to Diodorus, that the planets were the interpreters of the will of the gods. This is substantially the point of view of E. Stucken,[1510] who, in common with Dupuis (though, apparently, independently), holds to the unity of ancient religions and the astral origin of all myths. From Babylonia, he thinks, myths passed to all parts of the world, Egypt, Asia, Europe, Polynesia, and America—in such migrations, however, it was the motif that passed; the personages might vary in different lands.[1511] Finally he traces all sagas of all peoples to the creation myth.[1512] This supreme unification is reached by arguments so far-fetched as to deprive them of force.
Stucken's position was adopted and elaborated by H. Winckler, who was followed by A. Jeremias and some others.[1513] Winckler attempts to show that a single religion existed in the ancient Oriental world (with a single system of myths), and that this was dominated by the conception that there was a correspondence between the heavenly world and the lower world in such wise that all earthly affairs were indicated by the movements of the heavenly bodies, whence arose the whole religious system of Western Asia and Greece.
[867]. What is true in this theory (to which the name of "Panbabylonianism" has been given) is that Semitic mythology is a unit, with Babylonia as its birthplace, and that certain elements are common to the Egyptian, Semitic, Greek, and other mythological systems. The substantial identity of Babylonian, Aramean (Syrian), and Canaanite myths is generally acknowledged:[1514] the Old Testament dragon-myth (which occurs also in the New Testament Apocalypse) is found in full shape only in Babylonian material;[1515] the Syrian Adonis myth is at bottom the Babylonian story of Tammuz and Ishtar. The probability is that all early Semitic schemes of creation and prehistoric life are essentially one. Further, such conceptions as the origin of the world from an unshaped mass of matter and the origin of man from the earth are widely distributed over the earth.
[868]. Babylonia, then, is the chief mythopœic center for the Semitic region, but we are not warranted in extending its influence as myth-maker beyond this region. The myths of the Indo-European peoples have in general the stamp of independent creation. Loans there may be (as, for example, in the myths connected with Aphrodite and Heracles, and perhaps others), but these do not affect the character of the whole. The relation between the Semitic and the Egyptian mythologies is still under discussion.
[869]. The astral element of the theory, based on arbitrary parallelisms carried out without regard to historical conditions, is an unauthorized extension of the generally accepted fact that certain myths are astral. Winckler's assumption of an astral "system" that obtained throughout the Western world is supported only by unproved assertions of the sort just referred to.
[870]. Jensen's contention that all myths come from the Babylonian Gilgamesh story[1516] exhibits the same general method as the theories of Stucken and Winckler (giving assertion in place of proof), differing from them only in the material of comparisons.
[871]. The fundamental vice of these theories (apart from the arbitrary character of the assertions made by their authors) is the failure to take into account the historical development of mythical conceptions, their beginnings in the rudest periods of human thought, and their gradual elaboration and distinct formulation in the great communities, in which process, along with the varieties of local conditions, certain fundamental resemblances remain throughout.[1517]
[872]. Besides these more prominent or more definitely formulated theories there has been in some quarters a disposition to insist too strongly on lines of mythical development connected with the plant world, particularly with the death and revival of vegetation. All that we know of the history of mythical material among existing savages and in the earliest forms of belief of civilized nations forbids the limitation of the origin of myths to any one department of nature or to any one part of the world. Myths, like gods, may be composite: of this nature, probably, are some cosmogonic histories,[1518] and the stories of Gilgamesh, Heracles, Perseus, and many others. The lines of origin mentioned above have, naturally, in some cases, coalesced, and their combination into single coherent narratives has been spread over long periods of time. For this reason there is always need of detailed investigations of particular myths as a preparation for a general history of mythology.[1519]
[873]. Modern critical methods in the interpretation of myths. The treatment of myths has followed the general course of the development of thought in the world. In the old national religions they were incorporated in the substance of the religious beliefs. The reformers of thought either ignored them (so, for example, Confucius and Buddha), or denounced their absurdities (so Plato and others), or allegorized or rationalized them (so many Greek philosophers); the early Christian writers treated Old Testament myths as history, and ridiculed the myths of Greece and Rome. During the long period when the European peoples were assimilating the ideas of Christianity the study of myths remained in abeyance. After the classical revival there was a return to the allegorizing method, the fondness for which has not yet completely died out.[1520]
[874]. The extension of knowledge in the eighteenth century gave an impetus to the study of religion, the results of which for mythological investigation appear in the works of Dupuis and others.[1521] These authors were necessarily ignorant of many important facts, but they have the merit of having collected much material, which they treated as something that had to be explained in accordance with the laws of human thought.
[875]. The turning-point in the development of mythological science was the rise of the modern critical study of history, begun by Voltaire and Gibbon and carried on by Niebuhr and others. A vigorous group of writers arose in Germany. Creuzer,[1522] indeed, holding that the myths of the ancients must embody their best thought, and falling back on symbolism, cannot be said to have advanced his subject except by his collection of materials; there is some basis for his position if the ancient myths are taken in the sense given them by the later poets and philosophers, but the supposition of a primary symbolism in myths is set aside by an examination of the ideas of undeveloped races. Creuzer's theory was effectively combated by Voss.[1523] Other writers of the time adopted exacter methods of inquiry,[1524] and K. O. Müller,[1525] particularly, laid the foundation for a scientific treatment of myths by distinguishing between their real and their ideal elements, between the actual phenomenon and the imaginative (the true mythical) explanation of it.
[876]. The next generation witnessed two retrograde movements in the interpretation of myths. F. Max Müller, dazzled by the wealth of Sanskrit mythological material, revived the solar theory, with a peculiar appendage;[1526] the defects of his theory must not blind us to the great service he performed in arousing interest in the comparative study of myths and leading the way to a formulation of the conception of the general history of religion. On another side the vast accumulation of the religious ideas and usages of lower tribes led Herbert Spencer to his euhemeristic view.[1527] Neither of these theories has seriously affected the growth of the science of mythology.
[877]. A saner direction was given to investigation by the great biological and sociological studies made in the second half of the nineteenth century.[1528] E. B. Tylor definitely stated the view that the origin of myths is to be found in all the ideas of early man. By a very large collection of facts[1529] he showed that the same representations that are familiar in Egyptian, Semitic, Hindu, Greek, Roman, and other ancient myths occur also in the systems of half-civilized and savage communities; and he pointed out how such representations had their basis in the simple ideas of undeveloped men and how their survival is to be traced through all periods of history. This fruitful view has been illustrated and developed by later writers,[1530] and much light has been thrown on the genesis and growth of myths by studies of existing popular customs in civilized communities.[1531]
[878]. Interest in the subject has now become general, and collections of material are being made all over the world.[1532] At the same time it is recognized that every local mass of myths must be studied first by itself and then in connection with all other known material, and that great caution must be exercised in dealing with questions of origin, transmission, and survival. Archæological and geographical discoveries have widened the known area of human life on earth; it is seen that the history of man's development is more complicated than was formerly supposed.
[879]. We are still without a general survey of myths arranged in some orderly fashion.[1533] The material for such a collection is scattered through a great number of publications, in which the mythical stories are not always treated critically. The most useful principle of tabulation, perhaps, would be an arrangement according to motifs, under which geographical or ethnological and geographical relations might be noted. At the present time it would be possible only to make a beginning in such a work, since the obtainable material is not all recorded, and the complicated character of many myths makes an arrangement by place and motif difficult. Still, even an incomplete digest would be of service to students of mythology and would pave the way for a more comprehensive work. The importance of the study of mythology for the general history of religions is becoming more and more manifest. This study, in its full form, includes, of course, psychological investigation as well as collections of statistics; but the psychology finds its material in the facts—we must first know what men believe, and then explain why they believe.
[880]. It must, however, be added that myths have influenced mainly the dogmas and ceremonies of religion—their part in more intimate or spiritual worship, the converse of the worshiper with the deity, has been comparatively slight. Religious ceremonies are ordinary social customs and forms transferred to dealings with supernatural Powers. Dogmas are quasi-philosophical expressions of conceptions concerning the nature of these Powers and their relations with men, and sometimes contain mythical material which is then introduced into worship; if, for example, a man is divinized and worship is paid him, the tone of the worship is affected by the divine character thus ascribed to him. But in general, as men, in worship proper, approach a deity to get some advantage from him, the appeal is to him directly without regard to ceremonies or minute dogmas. Savages, though in theory they may make a god to be an animal or a plant, come to him devoutly as a superior being who can grant their requests. In higher religions the deity addressed is for the moment an omnipotent friend standing apart from the stories told of him. Rival sects lose sight of their differences in the presence of needs that drive them to God for help. Prayer is a religious unifier—communion with the Deity is an individual experience in which all men stand on common ground, where ritual and dogmatic accessories tend to fade or to disappear.
[881]. Long after myths in their original forms have ceased to be believed they persist in the form of "fairy tales," which retain something of the old supernatural framework, but sink into mere stories for amusement.[1534]
But fairy tales are not the only form in which ancient myths persist. Myths have played their prominent part in the history of religion for the reason that they embody the conception of the tangible supernatural in a vivid and dramatic way. To this personalization and socialization of the supernatural men have continued to cling up to the present time; the mass of men demand not only the presence of the supernatural as protection and guidance, but also the realization of it in objective form. This objectiveness was useful and necessary in early times, and the demand for it remains in periods of advanced civilization. In the reigning religions of the world at the present day myths continue to hold their place and to exercise their influence,[1535] the more that in the course of time they become fused with the constantly advancing ethical and spiritual thought of the communities in which they exist. The tendency appears to be to minimize, under the influence of general enlightenment, the crude supernatural parts of such combinations, to exalt the moral and spiritual, and to allegorize or rationalize the rest. But along with such process of rationalization the mythical form is maintained and continues to be a powerful element in the general structure of religious opinion and life.