MYTHOLOGY (Gr. pvOo7'.oyia, the See also:

• SCIENCE (Lat. scientia, from scire; to learn, know)

It is this irrational and unnatural See also:

• ELEMENT (Lat. elementum)

Here we see the religiousview of Cagn, the Bushman god. But in the mythological See also:

• ACCOUNT
• ACCOUNT (through O. Fr. acont, Late Lat. comptum, cornputare, to calculate)

67,4 was the author of a very ancient See also:

• SYSTEM

This view suited Lactantius, St See also:

• AUGUSTINE, SAINT (354-430)
• AUGUSTINE, SAINT (d. c.613)

See also:

• LOBECK, CHRISTIAN AUGUST (1781-186o)

Another, like See also:

• PORPHYRY (IlopcPisptos) (A.D. 233-c. 304)

113. 2 De civ. dei., vii. 18; viii. 26. La Mythologic et See also:

• LES

Another school (also somewhat divided against itself) believes that misunderstood language played but a very slight See also:

• PART

The word may have no intelligible meaning in Greek, but its counterpart in the allied tongues, especially in Sanskrit or Zend, may reveal the original significance of the terms. " To understand the origin and meaning of the names of the Greek gods, and to enter into the original intention of the fables told of each, we must take into account the See also:

• COLLATERAL (from Med. Lat. collateralis,—cum, with, and latus, lateris, side,—side by side, hence parallel or additional)

410. II savage and senseless elements in the legends of the gods will be shown to have a natural significance, as descriptions of See also:

• SKY (M. Eng. skie, cloud; O. Eng. skua, shade; connected with an Indo-European root sku, cover, whence " scum," Lat. obscurus, dark, &c.)

When these gods became popular they would inevitably inherit any current exploits of earlier heroes or gods. These exploits would therefore be explained erroneously if regarded as originally myths of sky or fire. We cannot convert Max Muller's proposition " there was nothing told of the sky that could not in some form or other be ascribed to Zeus" into " there was nothing ascribed to Zeus that had not at some See also:

• TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
• TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
• TIME, STANDARD

This condition of thought is demonstrated to be, and to have been, universal among savages, and it may notoriously be observed among children. Thus Max Muller's theory that myths are " a disease of language " seems destitute of evidence, and inconsistent with what is historically known about the relations between the language and the social, See also:

• POLITICAL

See also:

• SOC

The chief objection to these processes is that they require, as a necessary condition, a singular amount of memory on the one hand and of forgetfulness on the other. The lowest contemporary savages remember little or nothing of any ancestor farther back than the-grandfather. But men in Spencer's Mythopoeic age had much longer memories. On the other hand, the most ordinary savage does not misunderstand so universal a See also:

• CUSTOM (from O. Fr. costume, costume or coustume; Low Lat. costuma, a shortened form of consuetudo)

If we investigate myths of the origin of the world, we often find gods in animal form active in the work of world-making. If we examine myths of human descent from animals, we find gods busy there, and if we try to investigate the myths of the origin of the gods, the subject gets mixed up with the mythical origins of things in general. Our first question will be, Is there any stage of human society, and of the human See also:

• INTELLECT (Lat. intellectus, from intelligere, to understand)

Our answer is that everything in the civilized mythologies which we regard as irrational seems only part of the accepted and rational See also:

• ORDER
• ORDER (through Fr. ordre, for earlier ordene, from Lat. ordo, ordinis, rank, service, arrangement; the ultimate source is generally taken to be the root seen in Lat. oriri, rise, arise, begin; cf. " origin ")
• ORDER, HOLY

But, while the possibility of the See also:

• DIFFUSION (from the Lat. diffundere; dis-, asunder, and fundere, to pour out)

The Intellectual Condition of Savages.—Our next step must be briefly to examine the intellectual condition of savages, that is, of races varying from the condition of the Andaman Islanders to that of the Solomon Islanders and the ruder Red Men of the See also:

• AMERICAN

" Have you ever had a great See also:

• FLOOD (in O. Eng. flod, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Flut, Dutch vloed, from the same root as is seen in " flow," " float ")
• FLOOD, HENRY (1732-1791)

We find, too, that political power, sway and social See also:

• INFLUENCE (Late Lat. influentia, from influere, to flow in)

" Against this statement it has been urged that men in the lower stages of culture are not curious, but take all phenomena for granted. If there were no See also:

• DIRECT

The answers cannot be accounted for without the previous existence of the questions. We have now shown how savages come to have a mythology. It is their way of satisfying the early form of scientific curiosity, their way of realizing the world in which they move. But they See also:

• FRAME

140) claim descent, and in See also:

• INDIAN

The bear in See also:

• NORWAY
• NORWAY (Norge)

R. School-See also:

• CRAFT (a word common to Teutonic languages for strength, or power; cf. Ger. Kraft)

E. W. Lane, in his introduction to the Arabian Nights (i. 58), says he found the belief in these transmigrations accepted seriously in See also:

• CAIRO
• CAIRO (Arabic Misr-al-Kahira, or simply Misr)

In Lafitau's tale the birds were wounded by the magic arrows of a medicine man, and the arrow-heads were found in the bodies of the human culprits. In See also:

• JAPAN

The Thlinkeets hold that their shamans have the same powers.' A See also:

• BAMBOO

15, 40. Missionary Travels, pp. 615, 642. W. H. Dall, See also:

• ALASKA

The See also:

• SERPENT (Lat. serpens, creeping, from serpere; cf. "reptile " from repere, Gr.4 ml-eta)

From the natives of See also:

• NORTHERN

2, 95. n H. N. xv. 44, 85. the same set of ideas in more detail, are Adonis, See also:

• ATTIS

The result of our examination, so far, is that in savage opinion sky, wind, sun, sea and many other phenomena have, being personal, all the powers attributed to real human persons. These powers and Bualities are: (I) relationship to animals and ability to be transformed and to transform others into animals and other objects; (z) magical accomplishments, as—(a) power to visit or to procure the visits of the dead; (b) other magical powers, such as control over the weather and over the fertility of nature in all departments. Once more, the great forces of nature, considered as persons, are involved in that inextricable confusion in which men, beasts, plants, stones, stars, are all on one level of personality and animated existence. This is the philosophy of savage life, and it is on these principles that the savage constructs his myths, while thee, again, are all the scientific explanations of the universe with which he has been able to supply himself. Examples of Mythology.—Myths of the origin of the world and man are naturally most widely diffused. Man has every-where asked himself whence things came and how, and his myths are his earliest extant form of answer to this question. So confused and inconsistent are the mythical answers that it is very difficult to classify them according to any system. If we try beginning with myths of creative gods, we find that the world is sometimes represented as pre-existent to the divine race. If we try beginning with myths of the origin of the world, we frequently find that it owes its origin to the activity of pre-existent supernatural beings. According to all modern views of creation, the creative mind is See also:

• PRIOR (from Lat. prior—former, and hence superior, through O. Fr. priour)
• PRIOR, MATTHEW (1664-1721)

But when we speak of gods, we must not give to the word a modern significance. As used here, gods merely mean non-natural and powerful beings, sometimes " magnified non-natural men," sometimes beasts, birds or See also:

• INSECTS

These are the doctrines of See also:

• ANIMISM (from animus, or anima, mind or soul)

The best account of this All-Father belief in the lowest culture is to be read in R. Howitt's Native Races of South-See also:

• EAST
• EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

But all over the savage world, especially in Africa, spirit worship has sprung up and choked the All-Father, who, how-ever, in most savage regions, abides as a name, receiving no sacrifice, and, save among the See also:

• MASAI

The belief in the All-Father in south-eastern Australia is concealed from the women and children who, at most, know his exoteric name, often meaning " Our Father," and is revealed only to the initiate, among whom are a very few white men, like Howitt. Mrs Langloh Parker, of course, was not initiated (indeed, no white man has gone through the actual and very painful rites), but confidences were made to her with great secrecy. The All-Father, even at his best, among the Kurnai, Kamilaroi and Euahlayi, is the centre of many See also:

• GROTESQUE

That being, in many cases, but not so commonly in Australia, has a malevolent opposite who thwarts his work,, an See also:

• AHRIMAN (Gr. 'Apecµavios in Aristotle, or 'Apeiµav+7s in Agathias; in the Avesta, Angr3 Mainyush)—" the Destructive Spirit ")

These beings modified the See also:

• FACE (from Lat. fades, derived either from facere, to make, or from a root fa-, meaning " appear "; cf. Gr. cbatvstv)

The question as to which theory came first, whether Alcheringaism is a scientific effort that swept away All-Fatherism, or whether All-Fatherism is a religious reaction in despair of science and of the evolutionary doctrine, is settled by each inquirer in accordance with his personal See also:

• BIAS
• BIAS (from the Fr. biais, of unknown origin; the derivation from Lat. bifax, two-faced, is wrong)

The Mantis is defeated in an encounter with a cat which happened to be singing a See also:

• SONG

According to one old believer, " Tsui-Goab (an alternative See also:

• READING

He is propitiated by passers-by at his sepulchres. He has intimate relations in See also:

• PEACE
• PEACE, BREACH OF THE

About Gaunab (the Ahriman to Tsui-Goab's Ormuzd) Dr Hahn gives two distinct opinions. "Gaunab was at first a ghost, a See also:

• MISCHIEF

Callaway (Unkulunkulu, 1868–187o) is very thin and uninteresting. The Zulus are great worshippers of ancestors (who appear to men in the form of snakes), and they regard a being called Unkulunkulu as their first ancestor, and sometimes as the creator, or at least as the maker of aIen. It does not appear they identify Unkulunkulu, as a rule, with " the lord of heaven," who, like Indra, causes the thunder. The word answering to our lord is also applied," even to beasts, as the lion and the See also:

• BOA

An excellent account of the myths of the See also:

• BANKS, GEORGE LINNAEUS (1821-1881)
• BANKS, NATHANIEL PRENTISS (1816–1894)
• BANKS, SIR JOSEPH
• BANKS, THOMAS (1735-1805)

See also:

• BEAT (a word common in various forms to the Teutonic languages; it is connected with the similar Romanic words derived from the Late Lat. battere)

Before Qat's time there had been no night, but he See also:

• PURCHASED

In the New See also:

• HEBRIDES, THE, or WESTERN ISLES

His name is Quawteaht. He married a pre-existent bird, the thunder-bird Tootah (we have met him among the Zulus), and by the bird he became the father of Indians. Wispohahp is the Aht See also:

• NOAH (ni, rest; Septuagint, New Testament, Philo, Josephus, Na*, N&i os, Nweos: Vulg. Noe)

He is usually, however regarded as a See also:

• RAVEN (O.E. hrafn, ,Icel. hrafn, Dan. ravn, Du. raaf, Ger. Rabe)

So far the peculiar mark of the wilder American tribe legends is the bestial character of the divine beings, which is also illustrated in Australia and Africa, while the bestial clothing, feathers or See also:

• FUR (connected with O. Fr. forre, a sheath or case; so " an outer covering ")

In Maori mythology it is more than usually difficult to keep apart the origin of the world and the origin and nature of the gods. Long traditional See also:

• HYMNS

94. 2 Bancroft, vol. iv, 3 Taylor, New Zealand, p. to8and is familiar to all from the Greek examples. Leaving the high gods whose functions are so large, while their forms (as of See also:

• LIZARD (Lat. lacertal)

Maui slew monsters, invented barbs for fish-hooks, frequently adopted the form of various birds, acted as Prometheus Purphoros the fire-stealer, See also:

• DREW
• DREW, SAMUEL (1765-1833)

The Mexican and Peruvian civilizations were far ahead of Maori culture, in so far as they possessed the elements of a much more settled and highly-organized society. Their religion had its See also:

• FINE

Muller? mentions the view that the humming-bird, as the most beautiful flying thing, is a proper See also:

• SYMBOL (Gr. o-uµ(3oXov, a sign)

gods, not to symbolism (Zeus was a cuckoo), but to survivals from that quality of early thought which draws no line between man and god and beast and bird and fish. If See also:

• SPIDERS

The creative myths and sun myths are crude and very early in character. Egyptian Myths.--On a much larger and more magnificent See also:

• SCALE
• SCALE (1) A

Or we may take the opposite view, and regard the story of Osiris and his war with See also:

• SETH
• SETH (Egyptian Set, Sth~~~{{{or Sts)
• SETH (I* according to Dillmann, " setting " or " slip "; Septuagint, Philo and New Testament, fie, but r Chron. i. 1 Ells in A ; Josephus, EfjOor, Vulg. Seth)

Whether the same myth was current in the far more distant days of Mycerinus, it is, of course, impossible to say with dogmatic certainty. The religious history of Egypt, from perhaps Dynasty X. to Dynasty XX., is interruptedby an invasion of Semitic conquerors and Semitic ideas. Prior to that invasion the gods, when mentioned in monuments, are always represented by animals, and these animals are the object of strictly local worship. The name of each god is spelled in hieroglyphs beside the beast or bird. The See also:

• JACKAL
• JACKAL (Turk. chakal)

With one or two exceptions, " the first (semi-anthropomorphic) figures of gods known in the civilized part; of Egypt are on the See also:

• GRANITE (adapted from the Ital. granite, grained; Lat. granum, grain)

Osiris introduced civilization into Egypt, and then wandered over the world, making men acquainted with See also:

• AGRICULTURE
• AGRICULTURE (from Lat. ages, field, and colere, to cultivate)
• AGRICULTURE, BOARD OF

Plutarch purposely omits as " too blasphemous " the legend of the mangling of Horus. Though the graves of these non-natural beings are shown, the priests (De Is. et Os. xxi.) also show the stars into which they were metamorphosed, as the Eskimo and Australians and Aryans of India and Greeks have recognized in the constellations their ancient heroes. Plutarch remarked the fact that the Greek myths of Cronus, of Dionysus, of Apollo and the See also:

• PYTHON

This is perhaps an early " dualistic " myth. Among other mythic Egyptian figures we have Ra, who once destroyed men in his wrath with circumstances suggestive of the Deluge; Khnum, a demiurge, is represented at Philae as making man out of day on a See also:

• POTTER, ALONZO (1800-1865)
• POTTER, HENRY CODMAN (1835–1908)
• POTTER, J
• POTTER, JOHN (c. 1674-1747)
• POTTER, PAUL (1625—1654)
• POTTER, PHILIP CIPRIANI HAMBLEY (1792—1871)

The ideas which may be gathered about the gods from the hymns are (as is usual in heathen religions) without consistency. There is no strict orthodoxy. As each See also:

• BARD

The " hunger and thirst after righteousness " of the sacred _et ' See also:

• DEMOSTHENES

12, 4; viii. 93 seq.; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, v. 218. psalmist. But this aspect o the Vedic deities is essentially matter for the science of religion rather than of mythology, which is concerned with the stories told about the gods. Religion is always forgetting, or explaining away, or apologizing for these stories. Now the Vedic deities, so imposing when regarded as vast natural forces (as such forces seem to us), so benignant when appealed to as forgivers of sins, have also their mythological aspect. In this aspect they are natural phenomena still, but phenomena as originally conceived of by the personifying imagination of the savage, and credited, like the gods of the Maori or the Australian, with all manner of freaks, adventures and disguises. The Veda, it is true, does not usually dilate much on the worst of these adventures. The Veda contains devotional hymns; we can no more expect much 4iarrative here than in the See also:

• PSALMS, BOOK
• PSALMS, BOOK OF, or PSALTER

A. See also:

• BARTH
• BARTH, HEINRICH (1821–1865)
• BARTH, KASPAR VON (1587-1658)

Many of the myths of the origin of the divine beings are on a level with the Maori theory that Heaven and Earth begat them in the ordinary way. Again, the gods were represented as the children of Aditi. This may be taken either in a refined sense, as if Aditi were the " infinite region from which the solar deities rise,' or we may hold with the Taittirya-Brahmana 6 that Aditi was a female who, being desirous of offspring, cooked a brahmandana offering for the Sadhyas. Various other fathers and mothers of the gods are mentioned. Some gods, particularly Indra, are said to have won divine rank by " austere fervour " and See also:

• ASCETICISM

The gods were less numerous than the Asuras, but by a magical stratagem turned some bricks into gods (like a creation of new peers to carry a See also:

• VOTE

5; i. I) Indra is said to " have been guilty of that most hideous See also:

• CRIME (Lat. crimen, accusation)

167, I ; X. 159, 4 ; Muir, S. T. v. 15. 8 See Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 288, 329, 356. 9 The chief authority for the See also:

• CONSTANT, BENJAMIN (1845-1902)

1, 48. enemy. Indra cut him in two, and made the moon out of half of his body. This serpent was a universal devourer of everything and everybody, like Kwai Hemm, the all-devourer in Bushman mythology. If this invention is a late priestly one, the person who introduced it into the Satapatha-Brahmana must have reverted to the intellectual condition of Bushmen. In the fight with Vrittra, Indra lost his See also:

• ENERGY (from the Gr. ivipyela; iv, in, ipyov, work)

Space does not permit us to recount the equally puerile and barbarous legends of Vishnu, Agni, the loves of Vivasvat in the form of a horse, the adventures of Soma, nor the Vedic amours (paralleled in several savage mythologies) of Pururavas and Urvasi.2 Divine Myths of Greece.—If any ancient people was thoroughly civilized the Greeks were that people. Yet in the mythology and religion of Greece we find abundant survivals of savage manners and of savage myths. As to the religion, it is enough to point to the traces of human sacrifice and to the worship of rude fetish stones. The human sacrifices at See also:

• SALAMIS

Almost every temple had its fetish stone on a level with the See also:

• PUMICE (Lat. purnex, spumex, spuma, froth)

The name of Zeus (Skr. Dyaus) clearly indicates his connexion with the sky. But in Homer he has long ceased to be merely the sky conceived of as a person ; he is the ' Sacred Books of the East, xii. 176, 177. 2 On the whole subject, Dr Muir's Ancient Sanskrit Texts, with See also:

• TRANSLATIONS

21 ; Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 35; Porphyry, De Abst. ii. 55. 4 Gill, Myths and Songs, ^m the South Pacific, p. 6o.chief personage in a society of immortals, organized on the type of contemporary human society. " There is a great deal of human nature " in his wife Hera (Skr. Svar, Heaven).e It is to be remembered that philologists differ widely as to the origin and meaning of the names of almost all the Greek gods. Thus the light which the science of language throws on Greek myths is extremely uncertain. Hera is explained as " the feminine side of heaven " by some authorities. The quarrels of Hera with Zeus (which are a humorous anthropomorphic study in Homer) are represented as a way of speaking about winter and rough weather. The other chief Homeric deities are Apollo and Artemis, children of Zeus by Leto, a mortal mother raised to divinity. Apollo is clearly connected in some way with light, as his name 4o'Oor seems to indicate, and with purity.s Homer knows the legend that a See also:

• GIANT (O.E. geant, through Fr. giant, O.Fr. gaiant, jaiant, jeant, med. pop. Lat. gagante—cf. Ital. gigante—by assimilation from gigantem, ace. of Lat. gigas, Gr. yiyas)

58o). Smintheus, one of Apollo's titles in Homer, is connected with the See also:

• FIELD (a word common to many West German languages, cf. Ger. Feld, Dutch veld, possibly cognate with O.E. f olde, the earth, and ultimately with root of the Gr. irAaror, broad)
• FIELD, CYRUS WEST (1819-1892)
• FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY (18o5-1894)
• FIELD, EUGENE (1850-1895)
• FIELD, FREDERICK (18o1—1885)
• FIELD, HENRY MARTYN (1822-1907)
• FIELD, JOHN (1782—1837)
• FIELD, MARSHALL (183 1906)
• FIELD, NATHAN (1587—1633)
• FIELD, STEPHEN JOHNSON (1816-1899)
• FIELD, WILLIAM VENTRIS FIELD, BARON (1813-1907)

Her birth from the head of Zeus is not explicitly alluded to in Homer.8 In Homer, Athene is a warlike maiden, the See also:

• PATRON

Ares is a god with whom Homer has no sympathy. He is a son of Hera, and detested by Zeus (Iliad, v. 890). He is cowardly in war, and on one occasion was shut up for years in a huge brazen pot. This adventure was even more ignominious than that of Poseidon and Apollo when they were compelled to serve See also:

• LAOMEDON

Preller, Griechische Mythologie, •i. 128, note 1, for this and other philological conjectures. ° The derivation of 'A7riXXwv remains obscure. The derivation of Leto from Xa©e[v, and the conclusion that her name means " the concealer "—that is, the night, whence the sun is born—is disputed by See also:

• CURTIUS, ERNST (1814-1896)
• CURTIUS, MARCUS

° xiv. 257; xviii. 395; xix. 91, 132. 10 The root of his name is sought in such words as 7r6TOS and 7rorau6s. " We learn from the Odyssey (xiv. 209) that this was the custom of sons on the death of their father. of See also:

• PRIMOGENITURE

In addition to the great Homeric gods, the poet knows a whole " Olympian See also:

• CONSISTORY (Lat. consistorium, literally, a standing place, hence meeting place, waiting or audience chamber)

Zeus is usually called Cronion and Cronides, which Homer certainly understood to mean " son of Cronus," yet it is expressly stated that Zeus " imprisoned Cronus beneath the earth and the unvintaged sea." The whole subject is only alluded to incidentally. On the whole it may be said that the Homeric deities are powerful anthropomorphic beings, departmental rulers, united by the ordinary social and family ties of the Homeric age, capable of See also:

• PAIN (from Lat. poena, Gr. robin, penalty, that which must be paid: O. Fr. peine)
• PAIN, BARRY (1867– )

A number of monsters, as See also:

• ECHIDNA, or PORCUPINE

326. 2 Bleek, Bushman Folk-Lore, pp. 6-8. Max Muller suggests another theory (Selected Essays, i. 46o) : " Kpovos did not exist till long after Zdr in Greece." The name Kpoviav, or Kpovi&ns, looks like a patronymic. Muller, however, thinks it originally meant only connected with time, existing through all time." Very much later the name was mistaken for a genuine patronymic, I4-I In Homer and in Hesiod myths enter the region of literature, and become, as it were, national. But it is probable that the local myths of various cities and temples, of the " sacred chapters " which were told by the priests to travellers and in the mysteries to the initiated, were older in form than the epic and national myths. Of these " sacred chapters " we have fragments and hints in Hero= dotus, Pausanias, in the mythographers, like See also:

• APOLLODORUS

It is usual with mythologists to say that Zeus is the " AII-Father," and that his amours are only a. poetic way of stating that he is the parent of men. But why does he assume so many animal shapes ? Why did various royal houses claim descent from the ant, the swan, the she-bear, the serpent, the horse and so forth? We have already seen that this is the ordinary See also:

• PEDIGREE

He became anthropomorphic, and his myth was handled by local priests, by family bards, by national poets, by early philosophers. His legend is a complex See also:

• EMBROIDERY (M.E. embrouderie, from O. Fr. embroder, Mod. Fr. broder)

The See also:

• COLLECTOR

298-301. i. 131). Odin would thus (if we admit the etymology) be the swift goer, the " ganger," and it seems superfluous to make him (with Grimm) " the all-powerful, all-permeating being," a very abstract and scarcely an early conception. Odin's brethren (in Gylfi's Mocking) are Vile and Ve, who with him slew Ymir the giant, and made all things out of the fragments of his body. They also made man out of two stocks. In the Have-Mal Odin claims for himself most of the attributes of the medicine-man. In Loka See also:

• SENNA (Arab. sand)

Their relations are, on the whole, much more amicable than those of the Asuras and Devas in Indian mythology. Not necessarily immortal, the gods restored their vigour by eating the apples of Iduna. See also:

• ASA

The whole subject is beset with critical difficulties, and we have chiefly noted features which can hardly be regarded as late, and which correspond with widely distributed mythical ideas. Dasent's Prose or Younger Edda (See also:

• STOCKHOLM

These vary in quality with the civilization of the races in which they are current, but the same ideas which we proceed to state pervade all cosmogonical myths, savage and civilized. All these legends waver between the theory of creation, or rather of manufacture, and the theory of evolution. The earth, as a rule, is supposed to have grown out of some original matter, perhaps an animal, perhaps an egg which floated on the waters, perhaps a fragment of See also:

• SOIL

Among people a little more advanced, the earth is presumed to have grown out of the waters. In the Iroquois myth (Lafitau, Mceurs des sauvages, 1724), a heavenly woman was tossed out of heaven, and fell on a turtle, which developed into the world. Another North-American myth assumes a single island in the midst of the waters, and this island grew into the world. The Navaho and the Digger Indians take earth for granted as a starting-point in their myths. The \\7innebagos, not untouched by Christian doctrine, do not go farther back. The Great See also:

• MANITOU

The musk-rat sought his food at the bottom of the water, and his mouth was frequently filled with mud. This he kept spitting out, and so formed an island, which developed into the world. Among the Tinneh, the frame of a dog (which could assume the form of a handsome young man) became the first material of most things. The dog, like Osiris, Dionysus, Purusha and other gods, was torn to pieces by giants; the fragments became many of the things in the world (Bancroft i. 106). Even here the existence of earth for the dog to live in is assumed. Coming to races more advanced in civilization, we find the New Zealanders in See also:

• POSSESSION
• POSSESSION (Lat. possessio, possidere, to possess)

The cosmogonic myths of the Aryans of India are peculiarly interesting, as we find in the Vedas and Brahmanas and Puranas almost every fiction familiar to savages side by side with the most abstract metaphysical speculations. We have the theory that earth grew, as in the Iroquois story of the turtle, from a being named Uttanapad (Muir v. 335). We find that Brahmanaspati " blew the gods forth from his mouth," and one of the gods, 'I'vashtri, the mechanic among the deities, is credited with having fashioned the earth and the heaven (Muir v. 354). The "Purusha Sukta," the 9oth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig Veda, gives us the Indian version of the theory that all things were made out of the mangled limbs of Purusha, a magnified non-natural man, who was sacrificed by the gods. As this hymn gives an account of the origin of the castes (which elsewhere are scarcely recognized in the glance over the chief divisions of myths. These correspond to the chief problems which the world presents to the curiosity of untutored men. They ask themselves (and the -answers are given in myths) the following questions: What is the Origin of the World ? The Origin of Man ? Whence came the Arts of Life? Whence the Stars?

Whence the Sun and Moon? What is the Origin of Death? How was Fire procured by Man? The question of the origin of the marks and characteristics of various animals and plants has also produced a class of myths in which the marks are said to survive from some memorable adventure, or the plants and animals to be metamorphosed human beings. Examples of all these myths are found among savages and in the legends of the ancient civilizations. A few such examples may now be given. Myths of the Origin of the World.—We have found it difficult to keep myths of the gods apart from myths of the origin of the world and of man, because gods are frequently regarded as creative powers. The origin of things is a problem which has everywhere Rig Veda), it is sometimes regarded as a late addition. But we can according to See also:

• EGEDE, HANS (1686–1758)

284) shows how Prajapati, in his incestuous love, turned himself into a See also:

• ROE (or Row), SIR THOMAS (c. 1581—1644)
• ROE, EDWARD PAYSON (1838-1888)

Among aboriginal tribes in India (Dalton, p. 186) the Moon is the Sun's bride; she was faithless and he cut her in two, but occasionally lets her shine in full beauty. The Andaman Islanders account for the white brilliance of the moon by saying that he is daubing himself with white clay, a custom common in savage and Greek mysteries. The Red Men accounted to the Jesuits for the spherical forms of sun and moon by saying that their appearance was caused by their bended bows. The Moon in Greek myths loved See also:

• ENDYMION

In Australia, a woman was told not to go near a certain tree where a See also:

• BAT

The Australian version, singularly like one Greek legend, is given by Brough Smyth. Stories of the theft of Prometheus are recorded by Hesiod, See also:

• AESCHYLUS (525–456 B.c.)

4, 2; Muir i. 25). The myth of the See also:

• COSMIC (from Gr. Kovµos, order or universe)

The Scandinavian cosmogonic myth starts from the abyss, Ginnungagap, a See also:

• CHAOS

In another class of myths, man was evolved out of the lower animals —lizards in Australia; coyotes, heavers, apes and other beasts in America. The Greek myths of the descent of the Arcadians, Myrmidons, children of the swan, the cow, and so forth, may be compared. Yet again, men came out of trees or plants or rocks: as from the Australian wattle-See also:

• GUM (Fr. gomme, Lat. gommi, Gr. Kµµ1, possibly a Coptic word; distinguish " gum," the fleshy covering of the base of a tooth, in O. Eng. gbma, palate, cf. Ger. Gaumen, roof of the mouth; the ultimate origin is probably the root gha, to open wide, seen in

Castor and Pollux in Greece, as in Australia, were young men. Our Bear was a bear, according to See also:

• CHARLEVOIX
• CHARLEVOIX, PIERRE FRANCOIS

ments of a rather limited set of incidents. These incidents have been roughly classified by Von Hahn.' We may modify his arrangement as follows. There is (1) the story of a bride or bridegroom who transgresses a commandment of a mystic nature, and disappears as a result of the See also:

• SIN
• SIN (O. Eng. syn: a common Teutonic word, cf. Dutch zonde, Ger. Siinde)

This is best known in the case of See also:

• ANDROMEDA

(9) The grateful beasts, who, having been aided by the hero, aid him in his adventures. See also:

• MELAMPUS

The formulae here summarized, with others, are familiar in the marchen of Samoyeds, Zulus, Bushmen, Hottentots and Red Indians. For an argument intended to show that Greek heroic ' Griechische and albanesische MCirchen, i. 45. ' Tenth Book of Rig Veda and " Brahmana " of Yajur-Veda; Muller Selected Essays, i. 410.myths may be adorned and classified marchen, in themselves survivals of savage fancy, see Fortnightly See also:

• REVIEW (Fr. revue, from revoir, to see again, Lat. re and videre)