Modern Mythology - Andrew Lang 4 стр.

I must dwell a little longer on this passage in order to show the real difference between the ethnological and the philological schools of comparative mythology.

First of all, what has to be explained is not the growing up of a tree from one or the other member of a god or hero, but the total change of a human being or a heroine into a tree, and this under a certain provocation. These two classes of plant-legends must be carefully kept apart. Secondly, what does it help us to know that people in Mangaia believed in the change of human beings into trees, if we do not know the reason why? This is what we want to know; and without it the mere juxtaposition of stories apparently similar is no more than the old trick of explaining ignotum per ignotius. It leads us to imagine that we have learnt something, when we really are as ignorant as before.

If Mr. A. Lang had studied the Mangaian dialect, or consulted scholars like the Rev. W. W. Gill it is from his Myths and Songs from the South Pacific that he quotes the story of Tuna he would have seen that there is no similarity whatever between the stories of Daphne and of Tuna. The Tuna story belongs to a very well known class of ætiological plant-stories, which are meant to explain a no longer intelligible name of a plant, such as Snakeshead, Stiefmütterchen, &c.; it is in fact a clear case of what I call disease of language, cured by the ordinary nostrum of folk-etymology. I have often been in communication with the Rev. W. W. Gill about these South Pacific myths and their true meaning. The preface to his collection of Myths and Songs from the South Pacific was written by me in 1876; and if Mr. A. Lang had only read the whole chapter which treats of these Tree-Myths (p. 77 seq.), he would easily have perceived the real character of the Tuna story, and would not have placed it in the same class as the Daphne story; he would have found that the white kernel of the cocoanut was, in Mangaia, called the brains of Tuna, a name like many more such names which after a time require an explanation.

Considering that cocoanut was used in Mangaia in the sense of head (testa), the kernel or flesh of it might well be called the brain. If then the white kernel had been called Tunas brain, we have only to remember that in Mangaia there are two kinds of cocoanut trees, and we shall then have no difficulty in understanding why these twin cocoanut trees were said to have sprung from the two halves of Tunas brain, one being red in stem, branches, and fruit, whilst the other was of a deep green. In proof of these trees being derived from the head of Tuna, we are told that we have only to break the nut in order to see in the sprouting germ the two eyes and the mouth of Tuna, the great eel, the lover of Ina. For a full understanding of this very complicated myth more information has been supplied by Mr. Gill. Ina means moon; Ina-mae-aitu, the heroine of our story, means Ina-who-had-a-divine (aitu) lover, and she was the daughter of Kui, the blind. Tuna means eel, and in Mangaia it was unlawful for women to eat eels, so that even now, as Mr. Gill informs me, his converts turn away from this fish with the utmost disgust. From other stories about the origin of cocoanut trees, told in the same island, it would appear that the sprouts of the cocoanut were actually called eels heads, while the skulls of warriors were called cocoanuts.

Taking all these facts together, it is not difficult to imagine how the story of Tunas brain grew up; and I am afraid we shall have to confess that the legend of Tuna throws but little light on the legend of Daphne or on the etymology of her name. No one would have a word to say against the general principle that much that is irrational, absurd, or barbarous in the Veda is a survival of a more primitive mythology anterior to the Veda. How could it be otherwise?

Now (1), as to Daphne, we are not invariably told that hers was a case of the total change of a heroine into a tree. In Ovid 18 she is thus changed. In Hyginus, on the other hand, the earth swallows her, and a tree takes her place. All the authorities are late. Here I cannot but reflect on the scholarly method of Mannhardt, who would have examined and criticised all the sources for the tale before trying to explain it. However, Daphne was not mangled; a tree did not spring from her severed head or scattered limbs. She was metamorphosed, or was buried in earth, a tree springing up from the place.

(2) I think we do know why the people of Mangaia believe in the change of human beings into trees. It is one among many examples of the savage sense of the intercommunity of all nature. Antiquity made its division between man and the world in a very different sort than do the moderns. 19 I illustrate this mental condition fully in M. R. R. i. 46-56. Why savages adopt the major premise, Human life is on a level with the life of all nature, philosophers explain in various ways. Hume regards it as an extension to the universe of early mans own consciousness of life and personality. Dr. Tylor thinks that the opinion rests upon a broad philosophy of nature. 20 M. Lefébure appeals to psychical phenomena as I show later (see Fetishism). At all events, the existence of these savage metaphysics is a demonstrated fact. I established it 21 before invoking it as an explanation of savage belief in metamorphosis.

(3) The Tuna story belongs to a very well known class of ætiological plant-stories (ætiological: assigning a cause for the plant, its peculiarities, its name, &c.), which are meant to explain a no longer intelligible name of a plant, &c. I also say, these myths are nature-myths, so far as they attempt to account for a fact in nature namely, for the existence of certain plants, and for their place in ritual. 22

The reader has before him Mr. Max Müllers view. The white kernel of the cocoanut was locally styled the brains of Tuna. That name required explanation. Hence the story about the fate of Tuna. Cocoanut was used in Mangaia in the sense of head (testa). So it is now in England.

See BellsLife, passim, as The Chicken got home on the cocoanut.

On the whole, either cocoanut kernels were called brains of Tuna because cocoanut=head, and a head has brains and, well, somehow I fail to see why brains of Tuna in particular! Or, there being a story to the effect that the first cocoanut grew out of the head of the metamorphosed Tuna, the kernel was called his brains. But why was the story told, and why of Tuna? Tuna was an eel, and women may not eat eels; and Ina was the moon, who, a Mangaian Selene, loved no Latmian shepherd, but an eel. Seriously, I fail to understand Mr. Max Müllers explanation. Given the problem, to explain a no longer intelligible plant-name brains of Tuna (applied not to a plant but to the kernel of a nut), this name is explained by saying that the moon, Ina, loved an eel, cut off his head at his desire, and buried it. Thence sprang cocoanut trees, with a fanciful likeness to a human face face of Tuna on the nut. But still, why Tuna? How could the moon love an eel, except on my own general principle of savage levelling up of all life in all nature? In my opinion, the Mangaians wanted a fable to account for the resemblance of a cocoanut to the human head a resemblance noted, as I show, in our own popular slang. The Mangaians also knew the moon, in her mythical aspect, as Ina; and Tuna, whatever his name may mean (Mr. Max Müller does not tell us), was an eel. 23 Having the necessary savage major premise in their minds, All life is on a level and interchangeable, the Mangaians thought well to say that the head-like cocoanut sprang from the head of her lover, an eel, cut off by Ina. The myth accounts, I think, for the peculiarities of the cocoanut, rather than for the name brains of Tuna; for we still ask, Why of Tuna in particular? Why Tuna more than Rangoa, or anyone else?

We shall have to confess that the legend of Tuna throws but little light on the legend of Daphne, or on the etymology of her name.

I never hinted that the legend of Tuna threw light on the etymology of the name of Daphne. Mangaian and Greek are not allied languages. Nor did I give the Tuna story as an explanation of the Daphne story. I gave it as one in a mass of illustrations of the savage mental propensity so copiously established by Dr. Tylor in PrimitiveCulture. The two alternative explanations which I gave of the Daphne story I have cited. No mention of Tuna occurs in either.

The Tuna story is described as a clear case of disease of language cured by the ordinary nostrum of folk-etymology. The disease showed itself, I suppose, in the presence of the Mangaian words for brain of Tuna. But the story of Tuna gives no folk-etymology of the name Tuna. Now, to give an etymology of a name of forgotten meaning is the sole object of folk-etymology. The plant-name, snakes head, given as an example by Mr. Max Müller, needs no etymological explanation. A story may be told to explain why the plant is called snakes head, but a story to give an etymology of snakes head is superfluous. The Tuna story explains why the cocoanut kernel is called brains of Tuna, but it offers no etymology of Tunas name. On the other hand, the story that marmalade (really marmalet) is so called because Queen Mary found comfort in marmalade when she was sea-sick hence Marie-malade, hence marmalade gives an etymological explanation of the origin of the word marmalade. Here is a real folk-etymology. We must never confuse such myths of folk-etymology with myths arising (on the philological hypothesis) from disease of language. Thus, Daphne is a girl pursued by Apollo, and changed into a daphne plant or laurel, or a laurel springs from the earth where she was buried. On Mr. Max Müllers philological theory Daphne=Dahanâ, and meant the burning one. Apollo may be derived from a Sanskrit form, *Apa-var-yan, or *Apa-val-yan (though how Greeks ever heard a Sanskrit word, if such a word as Apa-val-yan ever existed, we are not told), and may mean one who opens the gate of the sky (ii. 692-696). 24 At some unknown date the ancestors of the Greeks would say The opener of the gates of the sky (*Apa-val-yan, i.e. the sun) pursues the burning one (Dahanâ, i.e. the dawn). The Greek language would retain this poetic saying in daily use till, in the changes of speech, *Apa-val-yan ceased to be understood, and became Apollo, while Dahanâ ceased to be understood, and became Daphne. But the verb being still understood, the phrase ran, Apollo pursues Daphne. Now the Greeks had a plant, laurel, called daphne. They therefore blended plant, daphne, and heroines name, Daphne, and decided that the phrase Apollo pursues Daphne meant that Apollo chased a nymph, Daphne, who, to escape his love, turned into a laurel. I cannot give Mr. Max Müllers theory of the Daphne story more clearly. If I misunderstand it, that does not come from want of pains.

In opposition to it we urge that (1) the etymological equations, Daphne=Dahanâ, Apollo=*Apa-val-yan, are not generally accepted by other scholars. Schröder, in fact, derives Apollo from the Vedic Saparagenya, worshipful, an epithet of Agni, who is Fire (ii. 688), and so on. Daphne=Dahanâ is no less doubted. Of course a Greek simply cannot be derived from a Sanskrit word, as is stated, though both may have a common origin, just as French is not derived from Italian.

(2) If the etymologies were accepted, no proof is offered to us of the actual existence, as a veracausa, of the process by which a saying. Apollo pursues Daphne, remains in language, while the meaning of the words is forgotten. This process is essential, but undemonstrated. See the chapter here on The Riddle Theory.

(3) These processes, if demonstrated, which they are not, must be carefully discriminated from the actual demonstrable process of folk-etymology. The Marmalade legend gives the etymology of a word, marmalade; the Daphne legend does not give an etymology.

(4) The theory of Daphne is of the kind protested against by Mannhardt, where he warns us against looking in most myths for a mirror-picture on earth of celestial phenomena. 25 For these reasons, among others, I am disinclined to accept Mr. Max Müllers attempt to explain the story of Daphne.

Since we shall presently find Mr. Max Müller claiming the celebrated Mannhardt as a sometime deserter of philological comparative mythology, who returned to his old colours, I observe with pleasure that Mannhardt is on my side and against the Oxford Professor. Mannhardt shows that the laurel (daphne) was regarded as a plant which, like our rowan tree, averts evil influences. Moreover, the laurel, like the Maibaum, was looked on as a being with a spirit. This is the safest result which myth analysis can extract from the story of Daphne, a nymph pursued by Apollo and changed into a laurel. It is a result of the use of the laurel in his ritual. 26 In 1877, a year after Mannhardt is said by Mr. Max Müller to have returned to his old colours, he repeats this explanation. 27 In the same work (p. 20) he says that there is no reason for accepting Max Müllers explanation about the Sun-god and the Dawn, wojederthätlicheAnhaltdafürfehlt. For this opinion we might also cite the Sanskrit scholars Whitney and Bergaigne. 28

THE QUESTION OF ALLIES

Mr. Max Müller protests, most justly, against the statement that he, like St. Athanasius, stands alone, contramundum. If ever this phrase fell from my pen (in what connection I know not), it is as erroneous as the position of St. Athanasius is honourable. Mr. Max Müllers ideas, in various modifications, are doubtless still the most prevalent of any. The anthropological method has hardly touched, I think, the learned contributors to Roschers excellent mythological Lexicon. Dr. Brinton, whose American researches are so useful, seems decidedly to be a member of the older school. While I do not exactly remember alluding to Athanasius, I fully and freely withdraw the phrase. But there remain questions of allies to be discussed.

Mr. Max Müller asks, 29 What would Mr. Andrew Lang say if he read the words of Signer Canizzaro, in his Genesi ed Evoluzione del Mito (1893), Lang has laid down his arms before his adversaries? Mr. Lang would smile. And what would Mr. Max Müller say if he read the words of Professor Enrico Morselli, Lang gives no quarter to his adversaries, who, for the rest, have long been reduced to silence? 30 The Right Hon. Professor also smiles, no doubt. We both smile. Solvunturrisutabulæ.

The question of the precise attitude of Professor Tiele, the accomplished Gifford Lecturer in the University of Edinburgh (1897), is more important and more difficult. His remarks were made in 1885, in an essay on the Myth of Cronos, and were separately reprinted, in 1886, from the Revue de lHistoire des Religions, which I shall cite. Where they refer to myself they deal with CustomandMyth, not with Myth, Ritual, andReligion (1887). It seems best to quote, ipsissimisverbis, Mr. Max Müllers comments on Professor Tieles remarks. He writes (i. viii.):