Here we anthropologists first ask Mr. Max Müller, before accepting Dr. Hahn’s etymologies, to listen to other scholars about the perils and difficulties of the philological analysis of divine names, even in Aryan languages. I have already quoted his ‘defender,’ Dr. Tiele. ‘The philological method is inadequate and misleading, when it is a question of (1) discovering the origin of a myth, or (2) the physical explanation of the oldest myths, or (3) of accounting for the rude and obscene element in the divine legends of civilised races.’
To the two former purposes Dr. Hahn applies the philological method in the case of Tsuni-Goam. Other scholars agree with Dr. Tiele. Mannhardt, as we said, held that Mr. Max Müller’s favourite etymological ‘equations,’ Sarameya=Hermeias; Saranyu=Demeter-Erinnys; Kentauros=Gandharvas and others, would not stand criticism. ‘The method in its practical working shows a lack of the historical sense,’ said Mannhardt. Curtius—a scholar, as Mr. Max Müller declares (i. 32)—says, ‘It is especially difficult to conjecture the meaning of proper names, and above all of local and mythical names.’ [{106a}] I do not see that it is easier when these names are not Greek, but Hottentot, or Algonquin!
Thus Achilles may as easily mean ‘holder of the people’ as ‘holder of stones,’ i.e. a River-god! Or does Αχ suggest aqua, Achelous the River? Leto, mother of Apollo, cannot be from λαθειν, as Mr. Max Müller holds (ii. 514, 515), to which Mr. Max Müller replies, perhaps not, as far as the phonetic rules go ‘which determine the formation of appellative nouns. It, indeed, would be extraordinary if it were. . . .’ The phonetic rules in Hottentot may also suggest difficulties to a South African Curtius!
Other scholars agree with Curtius—agree in thinking that the etymology of mythical names is a sandy foundation for the science of mythology.
‘The difficult task of interpreting mythical names has, so far, produced few certain results,’ says Otto Schrader. [{106b}]
When Dr. Hahn applies the process in Hottentot, we urge with a friendly candour these cautions from scholars on Mr. Max Müller.
A Hottentot God
In Custom and Myth (p. 207), I examine the logic by which Dr. Hahn proves Tsuni-Goam to be ‘The Red Dawn.’ One of his steps is to say that few means ‘sore,’ or ‘wounded,’ and that a wound is red, so he gets his ‘red’ in Red Dawn. But of tsu in the sense of ‘red’ he gives not one example, while he does give another word for ‘red,’ or ‘bloody.’ This may be scholarly but it is not evidence, and this is only one of many perilous steps on ground extremely scabreux, got over by a series of logical leaps. As to our quarrel with Mr. Max Müller about his friend’s treatment of ethnological materials, it is this: we do not believe in the validity of the etymological method when applied to many old divine names in Greek, still less in Hottentot.
Cause of our Scepticism
Our scepticism is confirmed by the extraordinary diversity of opinion among scholars as to what the right analysis of old divine names is. Mr. Max Müller writes (i. 18): ‘I have never been able to extract from my critics the title of a single book in which my etymologies and my mythological equations had been seriously criticised by real scholars.’ We might answer, ‘Why tell you what you know very well?’ For (i. 50) you say that while Signer Canizzaro calls some of your ‘equations’ ‘irrefutably demonstrated,’ ‘other scholars declare these equations are futile and impossible.’ Do these other scholars criticise your equations not ‘seriously’? Or are you ignorant of the names of their works?