Philological Theory
Philological mythologists prefer to believe that the forgotten meaning of words produced the results; that the wolf-born Apollo (Λυκηyενης) originally meant ‘Light-born Apollo,’ [{82b}] and that the wolf came in from a confusion between λυκη, ‘Light,’ and λυκος, a wolf. I make no doubt that philologists can explain Sminthian Apollo, the Dog-Apollo, and all the rest in the same way, and account for all the other peculiarities of place-names, myths, works of art, local badges, and so forth. We must then, I suppose, infer that these six traits of the mouse, already enumerated, tally with the traces which actual totemism would or might leave surviving behind it, or which propitiation of mice might leave behind it, by a chance coincidence, determined by forgotten meanings of words. The Greek analogy to totemistic facts would be explained, (1) either by asking for a definition of totemism, and not listening when it is given; or (2) by maintaining that savage totemism is also a result of a world-wide malady of language, which, in a hundred tongues, produced the same confusions of thought, and consequently the same practices and institutions. Nor do I for one moment doubt that the ingenuity of philologists could prove the name of every beast and plant, in every language under heaven, to be a name for the ‘inevitable dawn’ (Max Müller), or for the inevitable thunder, or storm, or lightning (Kuhn-Schwartz). But as names appear to yield storm, lightning, night, or dawn with equal ease and certainty, according as the scholar prefers dawn or storm, I confess that this demonstration would leave me sceptical. It lacks scientific exactitude.
Mr. Frazer on Animals in Greek Religion
In The Golden Bough (ii. 37) Mr. Frazer, whose superior knowledge and acuteness I am pleased to confess, has a theory different from that which I (following McLennan) propounded before The Golden Bough appeared. Greece had a bull-shaped Dionysus. [{83a}] ‘There is left no room to doubt that in rending and devouring a live bull at his festival, his worshippers believed that they were killing the god, eating his flesh, and drinking his blood.’ [{83b}] Mr. Frazer concludes that there are two possible explanations of Dionysus in his bull aspect. (1) This was an expression of his character as a deity of vegetation, ‘especially as the bull is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit in Northern Europe.’ [{84a}] (2) The other possible explanation ‘appears to be the view taken by Mr. Lang, who suggests that the bull-formed Dionysus “had either been developed out of, or had succeeded to, the worship of a bull-totem.”’ [{84b}]
Now, anthropologists are generally agreed, I think, that occasional sacrifices of and communion in the flesh of the totem or other sacred animals do occur among totemists. [{84c}] But Mr. Frazer and I both admit, and indeed are eager to state publicly, that the evidence for sacrifice of the totem, and communion in eating him, is very scanty. The fact is rather inferred from rites among peoples just emerging from totemism (see the case of the Californian buzzard, in Bancroft) than derived from actual observation. On this head too much has been taken for granted by anthropologists. But I learn that direct evidence has been obtained, and is on the point of publication. The facts I may not anticipate here, but the evidence will be properly sifted, and bias of theory discounted.
To return to my theory of the development of Dionysus into a totem, or of his inheritance of the rites of a totem, Mr. Frazer says, ‘Of course this is possible, but it is not yet certain that Aryans ever had totemism.’ [{84d}] Now, in writing of the mouse, I had taken care to observe that, in origin, the mouse as a totem need not have been Aryan, but adopted. People who think that the Aryans did not pass through a stage of totemism, female kin, and so forth, can always fall back (to account for apparent survivals of such things among Aryans) on ‘Pre-Aryan conquered peoples,’ such as the Picts. Aryans may be enticed by these bad races and become Pictis ipsis Pictiores.
Aryan Totems (?)
Generally speaking (and how delightfully characteristic of us all is this!), I see totems in Greek sacred beasts, where Mr. Frazer sees the corn-spirit embodied in a beast, and where Mr. Max Müller sees (in the case of Indra, called the bull) ‘words meaning simply male, manly, strong,’ an ‘animal simile.’ [{85a}] Here, of course, Mr. Max Müller is wholly in the right, when a Vedic poet calls Indra ‘strong bull,’ or the like. Such poetic epithets do not afford the shadow of a presumption for Vedic totemism, even as a survival. Mr. Frazer agrees with me and Mr. Max Müller in this certainty. I myself say, ‘If in the shape of Indra there be traces of fur and feather, they are not very numerous nor very distinct, but we give them for what they may be worth.’ I then give them. [{85b}] To prove that I do not force the evidence, I take the Vedic text. [{85c}] ‘His mother, a cow, bore Indra, an unlicked calf.’ I then give Sayana’s explanation. Indra entered into the body of Dakshina, and was reborn of her. She also bore a cow. But this legend, I say, ‘has rather the air of being an invention, après coup, to account for the Vedic text of calf Indra, born from a cow, than of being a genuine ancient myth.’ The Vedic myth of Indra’s amours in shape of a ram, I say ‘will doubtless be explained away as metaphorical.’ Nay, I will go further. It is perfectly conceivable to me that in certain cases a poetic epithet applied by a poet to a god (say bull, ram, or snake) might be misconceived, and might give rise to the worship of a god as a bull, or snake, or ram. Further, if civilised ideas perished, and if a race retained a bull-god, born of their degradation and confusion of mind, they might eat him in a ritual sacrifice. But that all totemistic races are totemistic, because they all first metaphorically applied animal names to gods, and then forgot what they had meant, and worshipped these animals, sans phrase, appears to me to be, if not incredible, still greatly in want of evidence.
Mr. Frazer and I
It is plain that where a people claim no connection by descent and blood from a sacred animal, are neither of his name nor kin, the essential feature of totemism is absent. I do not see that eaters of the bull Dionysus or cultivators of the pig Demeter [{86}] made any claim to kindred with either god. Their towns were not allied in name with pig or bull. If traces of such a belief existed, they have been sloughed off. Thus Mr. Frazer’s explanation of Greek pigs and bulls and all their odd rites, as connected with the beast in which the corn-spirit is incarnate, holds its ground better than my totemistic suggestion. But I am not sure that the corn-spirit accounts for the Sminthian mouse in all his aspects, nor for the Arcadian and Attic bear-rites and myths of Artemis. Mouse and bear do appear in Mr. Frazer’s catalogue of forms of the corn-spirits, taken from Mannhardt. [{87}] But the Arcadians, as we shall see, claimed descent from a bear, and the mouse place-names and badges of the Troad yield a hint of the same idea. The many Greek family claims to descent from gods as dogs, bulls, ants, serpents, and so on, may spring from gratitude to the corn-spirit. Does Mr. Frazer think so? Nobody knows so well as he that similar claims of descent from dogs and snakes are made by many savage kindreds who have no agriculture, no corn, and, of course, no corn-spirits. These remarks, I trust, are not undiscriminating, and naturally I yield the bull Dionysus and the pig Demeter to the corn-spirit, vice totem, superseded. But I do hanker after the Arcadian bear as, at least, a possible survival of totemism. The Scottish school inspector removed a picture of Behemoth, as a fabulous animal, from the wall of a school room. But, not being sure of the natural history of the unicorn, ‘he just let him bide, and gave the puir beast the benefit o’ the doubt.’