but not so much importance is to be attached to this, as to some
other aspects of moon mythology. The hare-like patch is visible in
every land, and suggested the animal to all observers. That the
rabbit's period of gestation is thirty days is a singular coincidence;
but that is all--nay, it is not even that, for "the moon's revolution
round the earth," which Douce supposed the Chinese myth to typify,
is accomplished in a little more than _twenty-seven_ days. Neither
is much weight due to the fanciful comparison of Gubernatis: "The
moon is the watcher of the sky, that is to say, she sleeps with her
eyes open; so also does the hare, whence the _somnus leporinus_
became a proverb." [89] The same author says on another page, and
here we follow him: "The mythical hare is undoubtedly the moon.
In the first story of the third book of the _Pancatantram_, the hares
dwell upon the shore of the lake Candrasaras, or lake of the moon,
and their king has for his palace the lunar disk." [90] It is this story,
which Mr. Baring-Gould relates in outline; and which we are
compelled still further to condense. In a certain forest there once
lived a herd of elephants. Long drought having dried up the lakes
and swamps, an exploring party was sent out in search of a fresh
supply of water. An extensive lake was discovered, called the moon
lake. The elephants with their king eagerly marched to the spot, and
found their thirsty hopes fully realized. All round the lake were in
numerable hare warrens, which the tread of the mighty monsters
crushed unmercifully, maiming and mangling the helpless
inhabitants. When the elephants had withdrawn, the poor hares met
together in terrible plight, to consult upon the course which they
should take when their enemies returned. One wise hare undertook
the task of driving the ponderous herd away. This he did by going
alone to the elephant king, and representing himself as the hare
which lived in the moon. He stated that he was deputed by his
excellency the moon to say that if the elephants came any more to
the lake, the beams of night would be withheld, and their bodies
would be burned up with perpetual sunshine. The king of the
elephants thinking that "the better part of valour is discretion,"
decided to offer an apology for his offence. He was conducted to the
lake, where the moon was reflected in the water, apparently
meditating his revenge. The elephant thrust his proboscis into the
lake, which disturbed the reflection. Whereupon the elephant,
judging the moon to be enraged, hurried with his apology, and then
went off vowing never to return. The wise hare had proven that
"wisdom is better than strength"; and the hares suffered no more
molestation. "We may also remark, in this event, the truth of that
saying of Euripides, 'that one wise counsel is better than the strength
of many'" (_Polybius_, i. 35).
V. THE TOAD IN THE MOON.
We owe an immense debt of gratitude and honour to the many
enterprising and cultivated men who have gone into all parts of the
earth and among all peoples to investigate human history and habit,
mythology and religion, and thus enrich the stores of our national
literature. With such a host of travellers gathering up the fragments,
nothing of value is likely to be lost. We have to thank intelligent
explorers for all we know of the mythical frog or toad in the moon:
an addition to our information which is not unworthy of thoughtful
notice.
The Selish race of North-west American Indians, who inhabit the
country between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, have a
tradition, which Captain Wilson relates as follows: "The expression
of 'a toad in the moon,' equivalent to our 'man in the moon,' is
explained by a very pretty story relating how the little wolf, being
desperately in love with the toad, went a-wooing one night and
prayed that the moon might shine brightly on his adventure; his
prayer was granted, and by the clear light of a full moon he was
pursuing the toad, and had nearly caught her, when, as a last chance
of escape, she made a desperate spring on to the face of the moon,
where she remains to this day." [91] Another writer says that "the
Cowichan tribes think that the moon has a frog in it." [92]
From the Great Western we turn to the Great Eastern world, and in
China find the frog in the moon. "The famous astronomer Chang
Heng was avowedly a disciple of Indian teachers. The statement
given by Chang Heng is to the effect that 'How I, the fabled inventor
of arrows in the days of Yao and Shun,[*] obtained the drug of
immortality from Si Wang Mu (the fairy 'Royal Mother' of the
West); and Chang Ngo (his wife) having stolen it, fled to the moon,
and became the frog--_Chang-chu_--which is seen there.' The lady
_Chang-ngo_ is still pointed out among the shadows in the surface
of the Moon." [93] Dr. Wells Williams also tells us that in China
"the sun is symbolized by the figure of a raven in a circle, and the
moon by a rabbit on his hind legs pounding rice in a mortar, or by a
three-legged toad. The last refers to the legend of an ancient beauty,
Chang-ngo, who drank the liquor of immortality, and straightway
ascended to the moon, where she was transformed into a toad, still
to be traced in its face. It is a special object of worship in autumn,
and moon cakes dedicated to it are sold at this season." [94] We
have little doubt that what the Chinese look for they see. We in the
West characterize and colour objects which we behold, as we see
them through the painted windows of our predisposition or
prejudice. As a great novelist writes: "From the same object
different conclusions are drawn; the most common externals of
nature, the wind and the wave, the stars and the heavens, the very
earth on which we tread, never excite in different bosoms the same
ideas; and it is from our own hearts, and not from an outward
source, that we draw the hues which colour the web of our
existence. It is true, answered Clarence. You remember that in
two specks of the moon the enamoured maiden perceived two
unfortunate lovers, while the ambitious curate conjectured that they
were the spires of a cathedral." [95] Besides, it must be confessed
that the particular moon-patch that has awakened so much interest in
every age and nation is quite as much like a frog or toad as it is like
a rabbit or hare.
[*] Mr. Herbert A. Giles says that How I was a legendary chieftain,
who "flourished about 2,500 B.C." _Strange Stories from a Chinese
Studio_, London, 1880, i. 19, _note_.
VI. OTHER MOON MYTHS.
It is almost time that we should leave this lunar zoology; we will
therefore merely present a few creatures which may be of service in
a comparative anatomy of the whole subject, and then close the
account. There is a story told in the Fiji Islands which so nearly
approaches the Hottentot legend of the hare, that they both seem but
variations of a common original. In the one case the opponent of the
moon's benevolent purpose affecting man's hereafter was a hare, in
the other a rat. The story thus runs: There was "a contest between
two gods as to how man should die. Ra Vula (the moon) contended
that man should be like himself--disappear awhile, and then live
again. Ra Kalavo (the rat) would not listen to this kind proposal, but
said, 'Let man die as a rat dies.' And he prevailed." [96] Mr. Tylor,
who quotes this rat story, adds: "The dates of the versions seem to
show that the presence of these myths among the Hottentots and
Fijians, at the two opposite sides of the globe, is at any rate not due
to transmission in modern times." [97]
From the rat to one of its mortal enemies is an easy transition. The
Australian story is that Mityan, the moon, was a native cat, who fell
in love with another's wife, and while trying to induce her to run
away with him, was discovered by the husband, when a fight took
place. Mityan was beaten and ran away, and has been wandering
ever since. [98] We are indebted for another suggestion to Bishop
Wilkins, who wrote over two centuries ago: "As for the form of
those spots, _Albertus_ thinks that it represents a lion, with his tail
towards the east, and his head the west; and some others have
thought it to be very much like a fox, and certainly 'tis as much like
a lion as that in the _zodiac_, or as _ursa major_ is like a bear." [99]
This last remark of the old mathematician is "a hit, a very palpable
hit," at those unpoetical people who catalogue the constellations
under all sorts of living creatures' names, implying resemblances,
and then "sap with solemn sneer" our myths of the moon.
We have now seen that the moon is populated with men, women,
and children,--hares and rabbits, toads and frogs, cats and dogs, and
sundry small "cattle"; we observe in making our exit that it is also
planted with a variety of trees; in short, is a zoological garden of a
high order. Even among the ancients some said the lunar spots were
forests where Diana hunted, and that the bright patches were plains.
Captain Cook tells us that in the South Pacific "the spots observed
in the moon are supposed to be groves of a sort of trees which once
grew in Otaheite, and, being destroyed by some accident, their seeds
were carried up thither by doves, where they now flourish." [100]
Ellis also tells of these Tahitians that "their ideas of the moon,
which they called _avae_ or _marama_, were as fabulous as those
they entertained of the sun. Some supposed the moon was the wife
of the sun; others that it was a beautiful country in which the aoa
grew." [101] These arborary fancies derive additional interest, if not
a species of verisimilitude, from the record of a missionary that "a
stately tree, clothed with dark shining leaves, and loaded with many
hundreds of large green or yellowish-coloured fruit, is one of the
most splendid and beautiful objects to be met with among the rich
and diversified scenery of a Tahitian landscape."
Our collection of lunar legends is now on exhibition. No thoughtful
person will be likely to dispute the dictum of Sir John Lubbock that
"traditions and myths are of great importance, and indirectly throw
much light on the condition of man in ancient times." [102] But they
serve far more purposes than this. They are the raw material, out of
which many of our goodly garments of modern science and religion
are made up. The illiterate negroes on the cotton plantation, and the
rude hunters in the jungle or seal fishery, produce the staple, or
procure the skins, which after long labour afford comfort and
adornment to proud philosophers and peers. The golden cross on the
saintly bosom and the glittering crown on the sovereign brow were
embedded as rough ore in primeval rocks ages before their wearers
were born to boast of them. We shall esteem our treasures none the
less because their origin is known, as we love "the Best of men"
none the less because he was born of a woman. We closed our series
of moon myths with a vision of a beautiful country, ornamented
with groves of fruitful trees, whose seeds had been carried thither by
white-winged doves; and carried thither because "some accident"
had destroyed the trees in their native isles on earth. Thus the lunar
world had become a desirable scene of superior and surpassing
loveliness. Who can reflect upon this dream of human childhood,
and not recall some dreams of later years? Who can fail to discern
slight touches of the same hand which we see displayed in other
designs? "Happily for historic truth," says Mr. Tylor, "mythic
tradition tells its tales without expurgating the episodes which
betray its real character to more critical observation." [103] Who is
not led on from Tahiti to Greece, and to the Isles of the Blessed, the
Elysium which abounds in every charm of life, and to the garden of
the Hesperides, with its apples of gold; thence to the Meru of the
Hindoos, the sacred mountain which is perpetually clothed in the
rays of the sun, and adorned with every variety of plants and trees;
thence again to the Heden of the Persians, of matchless beauty,
where ever flourishes the tree Hom with its wonderful fruit; on to
the Chinese garden, near the gate of heaven, whose noblest spring is
the fountain of life, and whose delightful trees bear fruits which
preserve and prolong the existence of man? [104] Thence an easy
entrance is gained to the Hebrew Paradise, with its abounding trees
"pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the
midst of the garden"; and finally arises a sight of the "better land" of
the Christian poetess, the incorruptible and undefiled inheritance of
the Christian preacher, the prospect which is "ever vernal and
blooming,--and, best of all, amid those trees of life there lurks no
serpent to destroy,--the country, through whose vast region we shall
traverse with untired footsteps, while every fresh revelation of
beauty will augment our knowledge, and holiness, and joy." [105]
Who will travel on such a pilgrimage of enlarged thought, and not
come to the conclusion that if one course of development has been
followed by all scientific and spiritual truth, then "almost the whole
of the mythology and theology of civilized nations maybe traced,
without arrangement or co-ordination, and in forms that are
undeveloped and original rather than degenerate, in the traditions
and ideas of savages"? [106] Such a conclusion may diminish our
self-esteem, if we have supposed ourselves the sole depositaries of
Divine knowledge; but it will exalt our conception of the generosity
of the Father of all men, who never left a human soul without a
witness of His invisible presence and ineffable love.
MOON WORSHIP.
I. INTRODUCTION.
We have now to show that the moon has been in every age, and
remains still, one of the principal objects of human worship. Even
among certain nations credited with pure monotheism, it will be
manifested that there was the practice of that primitive polytheism
which adored the hosts of heaven. And, however humiliating or
disappointing the disclosure may prove, it will be established that
some of the foremost Christian peoples of the world maintain
luniolatry to this day, notwithstanding that they have the reproving
light of the latest civilization. We are so prone to talk of heathenism
as abroad, that we forget or neglect the gross heathenism which
abounds at home; and while we complacently speak of the march of
the world's progress with which we identify ourselves, we are
oblivious of the fact that much ancient falsehood survives and
blends with the truth in which our superior minds, or minds with
superior facilities, have been trained. How few of us reflect that the
signs and symbols of rejected theories have passed into the
nomenclature of received systems! Nay, we plume ourselves upon
the new translation or revision as if we were the favoured recipients
of some fresh revelation. Not only in the names of our days and
months, but also in some of our most cherished dogmas, we are but
the "liberal-conservatives" in religion, who retain the old, while we
congratulate ourselves upon being the apostles of the new. That the
past must always run into the present, and the present proceed from
the past, we readily enough allow as a natural and necessary law;
yet baptized heathenism is often heathenism still, under another
name. Again, we are sometimes so short-sighted that we deny to
former periods the paternity of their own more fortunate offspring,
and behave like prosperous children who ungratefully ignore their
poorer parents, to whom they owe their breath and being. Such
treatment of history is to be emphatically deprecated, whether it
arises from ignorance or ingratitude. We ought to know, if we do
not, and we ought also to acknowledge, that our perfect day grew
out of primeval darkness, and that the progress was a lingering
dawn. This we hold to be the clearest view of the Divine causation.
Our modern method in philosophy, largely owing to the _Novum
Organum_ of Bacon, is evolution, the _novum organum_ of the
nineteenth century; and this process recognises no abrupt or
interruptive creations, but gradual transformations from pre-existent
types, "variations under domestication," and the passing away of the
old by its absorption into the new. Our religion, like our language, is
a garden not only for indigenous vegetation, but also for
acclimatisation, in which we improve under cultivation exotic plants
whose roots are drawn from every soil on the earth. And, as Paul
preached in Athens the God whom the Greeks worshipped in
ignorance, so our missionaries carry back to less enlightened
peoples the fruit of that life-giving tree whose germs exist among
themselves, undeveloped and often unknown. No religion has fallen
from heaven, like the fabled image of Athene, in full-grown beauty.
All spiritual life is primordially an inspiration or intuition from the
Father of spirits, whose offspring all men are, and who is not far
from every one of them. This intuition prompts men to "seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him." Thus prayer
becomes an instinct; and to worship is as natural as to breathe. But
man is a being with five senses, and as his contact with his
fellow-creatures and with the whole creation is at one or other of
those five points, he is necessarily sensuous. Endowed with native
intelligence, the _intellectus ipse_ of Leibnitz, he nevertheless
receives his impressions on _sensitive_ nerves, his emotions are
_sentiments_, his words become _sentences_, and his stock of
wisdom is his common _sense_. A few, very few, words express his
sensations, a few more his perceptions, and so on; but he is
conscious of _objects_ at first, he deals with _subjects_ afterwards.
Soon the sun, moon, and stars, as bright lights attract his eyes, as we
have all seen an infant of a few days fix its gaze upon a candle or
lamp. These heavenly orbs are found to be in motion, to be far
away, to be the glory of day and night: what wonder if _ideas_ of
these _images_ are formed in the religious mind, if the worshipper
imagines the sun and moon to be reflections of the God of light, and
pays homage to the creature which renders the Creator visible? Thus
in the childhood of man religion grows, and with the multiplication
of intellect and sensation, endless diversity of language, conception
and faith is the result. Another result, of course, is the endless
diversity of deities. Every race, every nation, every tribe, every
household, every heart, has had its own God. And yet, with all this
multiplicity in religious literature and dogma, subject and object, a
unity co-exists which the student of the science notes with profound
interest. All nations of men are of one blood; and all forms of God
embody the one Eternal Spirit. To this unity mythology tends. As
one writer says: "We must ever bear in mind that the course of
mythology is from many gods toward one, that it is a synthesis, not
an analysis, and that in this process the tendency is to blend in one
the traits and stories of originally separate divinities."
[107] The ancient Hebrew worshipped God as "the Eternal, our
righteousness"; the Greek worshipped Him as wisdom and beauty;
the Roman as power and government; the Persian as light and
goodness; and so forth. Few hymns have surpassed the beauty of
Pope's _Universal Prayer_. It is the _Te Deum laudamus_ of that
catholic Church which embraces God-loved humanity.
"Father of all! in every age,
In every clime, adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!"
The Christian, believing his to be the "One Religion," as a recent
Bampton Lecturer termed it, too often forgets that his system is a
recomposition of rays of a religious light which was decomposed in
the prismatic minds of earlier men. And further, with a change of
metaphor, if Christianity has flourished and fructified through
eighteen centuries, it must not be denied that it is a graft upon an old
stock which through fifteen previous centuries had borne abundant
fruit. The same course must be adopted still. We find men
everywhere holding some truth; we add further truth; until, as a
chemist would say, we saturate the solution, which upon
evaporation produces a crystallized life of entirely new colour and
quality and form. Thus Professor Nilsson writes: "Every religious
_change_ in a people is, in fact, only an intermixture of religions;
because the new religion, whether received by means of convincing
arguments, or enforced by the eloquence of fire and sword, cannot
_at once_ tear up all the wide-spreading roots by which its
forerunner has grown in the heart of the people; this must be the
work of many years, perhaps of many generations." [108] We
cannot better close this lengthy introduction than by reminding
Christians of the saying of their Great and Good Teacher, "I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfil."
II. THE MOON MOSTLY A MALE DEITY.
We have already in part pointed out that the moon has been
considered as of the masculine gender; and have therefore but to
travel a little farther afield to show that in the Aryan of India, in
Egyptian, Arabian, Slavonian, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, Teutonic,
Swedish, Anglo-Saxon, and South American, the moon is a male
god. To do this, in addition to former quotations, it will be sufficient
to adduce a few authorities. "Moon," says Max Mueller, "is a very old
word. It was _mona_ in Anglo-Saxon, and was used there, not as a
feminine, but as a masculine for the moon was originally a
masculine, and the sun a feminine, in all Teutonic languages; and it
is only through the influence of classical models that in English
moon has been changed into a feminine, and sun into a masculine. It
was a most unlucky assertion which Mr. Harris made in his
_Hermes_, that all nations ascribe to the sun a masculine, and to the
moon a feminine gender." [109] Grimm says, "Down to recent
times, our people were fond of calling the sun and moon _frau
sonne_ and _herr mond_." [110] Sir Gardner Wilkinson writes:
"Another reason that the moon in the Egyptian mythology could not
be related to Bubastis is, that it was a male and not a female deity,
personified in the god Thoth. This was also the case in some
religions of the West. The Romans recognised the god Lunus; and
the Germans, like the Arabs, to this day, consider the moon
masculine, and not feminine, as were the Selene and Luna of the
Greeks and Latins." [111] Again, "The Egyptians represented their
moon as a male deity, like the German _mond_ and _monat_, or the
_Lunus_ of the Latins; and it is worthy of remark, that the same
custom of calling it male is retained in the East to the present day,
while the sun is considered female, as in the language of the
Germans." [112] "In Slavonic," Sir George Cox tells us, "as in the
Teutonic mythology, the moon is male. His wedding with the sun
brings on him the wrath of Perkunas [the thunder-god], as the song
tells us
'The moon wedded the sun
In the first spring.
The sun rose early
The moon departed from her.
The moon wandered alone;
Courted the morning star.
Perkunas, greatly wroth,
Cleft him with a sword.
'Wherefore dost thou depart from the sun,
Wandering by night alone,
Courting the morning star?'" [113]
"In a Servian song a girl cries to the sun--
'O brilliant sun! I am fairer than thou
Than thy brother, the bright moon.'"
In South Slavonian poetry the sun often figures as a radiant youth.
But among the northern Slavonians, as well as the Lithuanians, the
sun was regarded as a female being, the bride of the moon. 'Thou
askest me of what race, of what family I am,' says the fair maiden of
a song preserved in the Tambof Government--
'My mother is--the beauteous Sun,
And my father--the bright Moon.'" [114]
"Among the Mbocobis of South America the moon is a man and the
sun his wife." [115] The Ahts of North America take the same view;
and we know that in Sanskrit and in Hebrew the word for moon is
masculine.