The Stealing of Fire
The world-wide myth explaining how man first became possessed of fire—namely, by stealing it—might well serve as a touchstone of the philological and anthropological methods. To Mr. Max Müller the interest of the story will certainly consist in discovering connections between Greek and Sanskrit names of fire-gods and of fire bringing heroes. He will not compare the fire-myths of other races all over the world, nor will he even try to explain why—in almost all of these myths we find a thief of fire, a Fire-stealer. This does not seem satisfactory to the anthropologist, whose first curiosity is to know why fire is everywhere said to have been obtained for men by sly theft or ‘flat burglary.’ Of course it is obvious that a myth found in Australia and America cannot possibly be the result of disease of Aryan languages not spoken in those two continents. The myth of fire-stealing must necessarily have some other origin.
‘Fire Totems’
Mr. Max Müller, after a treatise on Agni and other fire-gods, consecrates two pages to ‘Fire Totems.’ ‘If we are assured that there are some dark points left, and that these might be illustrated and rendered more intelligible by what are called fire totems among the Red Indians of North America, let us have as much light as we can get’ (ii. 804). Alas! I never heard of fire totems before. Probably some one has been writing about them, somewhere, unless we owe them to Mr. Max Müller’s own researches. Of course, he cites no authority for his fire totems. ‘The fire totem, we are told, would thus naturally have become the god of the Indians.’ ‘We are told’—where, and by whom? Not a hint is given on the subject, so we must leave the doctrine of fire totems to its mysterious discoverer. ‘If others prefer to call Prometheus a fire totem, no one would object, if only it would help us to a better understanding of Prometheus’ (ii. 810). Who are the ‘others’ who speak of a Greek ‘culture-hero’ by the impossibly fantastic name of ‘a fire totem’?
Prometheus
Mr. Max Müller ‘follows Kuhn’ in his explanation of Prometheus, the Fire-stealer, but he does not follow him all the way. Kuhn tried to account for the myth that Prometheus stole fire, and Mr. Max Müller does not try. [{194}] Kuhn connects Prometheus with the Sanskrit pramantha, the stick used in producing fire by drilling a pointed into a flat piece of wood. The Greeks, of course, made Prometheus mean ‘foresighted,’ providens; but let it be granted that the Germans know better. Pramantha next is associated with the verb mathnami, ‘to rub or grind;’ and that, again, with Greek μανθανω, ‘to learn.’ We too talk of a student as a ‘grinder,’ by a coincidence. The root manth likewise means ‘to rob;’ and we can see in English how a fire-stick, a ‘fire-rubber,’ might become a ‘fire-robber,’ a stealer of fire. A somewhat similar confusion in old Aryan languages converted the fire-stick into a person, the thief of fire, Prometheus; while a Greek misunderstanding gave to Prometheus (pramantha, ‘fire-stick’) the meaning of ‘foresighted,’ with the word for prudent foresight, προμηθεια. This, roughly stated, is the view of Kuhn. [{195a}] Mr. Max Müller concludes that Prometheus, the producer of fire, is also the fire-god, a representative of Agni, and necessarily ‘of the inevitable Dawn’—‘of Agni as the deus matutinus, a frequent character of the Vedic Agni, the Agni aushasa, or the daybreak’ (ii. 813).
But Mr. Max Müller does not say one word about Prometheus as the Fire-stealer. Now, that he stole fire is of the essence of his myth; and this myth of the original procuring of fire by theft occurs all over the world. As Australian and American savages cannot conceivably have derived the myth of fire-stealing from the root manth and its double sense of stealing and rubbing, there must be some other explanation. But this fact could not occur to comparative mythologists who did not compare, probably did not even know, similar myths wherever found.
Savage Myths of Fire-stealing
In La Mythologie (pp. 185-195) I have put together a small collection of savage myths of the theft of fire. [{195b}] Our text is the line of Hesiod (Theogony, 566), ‘Prometheus stole the far-seen ray of unwearied fire in a hollow stalk of fennel.’ The same stalk is still used in the Greek isles for carrying fire, as it was of old—whence no doubt this feature of the myth. [{195c}] How did Prometheus steal fire? Some say from the altar of Zeus, others that he lit his rod at the sun. [{196a}] The Australians have the same fable; fire was obtained by a black fellow who climbed by a rope to the sun. Again, in Australia fire was the possession of two women alone. A man induced them to turn their backs, and stole fire. A very curious version of the myth occurs in an excellent book by Mrs. Langloh Parker. [{196b}] There was no fire when Rootoolgar, the crane, married Gooner, the kangaroo rat. Rootoolgar, idly rubbing two sticks together, discovered the art of fire-making. ‘This we will keep secret,’ they said, ‘from all the tribes.’ A fire-stick they carried about in their comebee. The tribes of the Bush discovered the secret, and the fire-stick was stolen by Reeargar, the hawk. We shall be told, of course, that the hawk is the lightning, or the Dawn. But in this savage Jungle Book all the characters are animals, and Reeargar is no more the Dawn than is the kangaroo rat. In savage myths animals, not men, play the leading rôles, and the fire-stealing bird or beast is found among many widely scattered races. In Normandy the wren is the fire-bringer. [{196c}] A bird brings fire in the Andaman Isles. [{196d}] Among the Ahts a fish owned fire; other beasts stole it. The raven hero of the Thlinkeets, Yehl, stole fire. Among the Cahrocs two old women possessed it, and it was stolen by the coyote. Are these theftuous birds and beasts to be explained as Fire-gods? Probably not. Will any philologist aver that in Cahroc, Thlinkeet. Australian, Andaman, and so forth, the word for ‘rub’ resembled the word for ‘rob,’ and so produced by ‘a disease of language’ the myth of the Fire-stealer?