'What makes mythology mythological, in the true sense of the word, is
what is utterly unintelligible, absurd, strange, or miraculous.' So says
Mr. Max Muller in the January number of the Nineteenth Century for 1882.
Men's attention would never have been surprised into the perpetual study
and questioning of mythology if it had been intelligible and dignified,
and if its report had been in accordance with the reason of civilised and
cultivated races. What mythologists wish to discover is the origin of
the countless disgusting, amazing, and incongruous legends which occur in
the myths of all known peoples. According to Mr. Muller--
There are only two systems possible in which the irrational element in
mythology can be accounted for. One school takes the irrational as a
matter of fact; and if we read that Daphne fled before Phoebus, and
was changed into a laurel tree, that school would say that there
probably was a young lady called Aurora, like, for instance, Aurora
Konigsmark; that a young man called Robin, or possibly a man with red
hair, pursued her, and that she hid behind a laurel tree that happened
to be there. This was the theory of Euhemeros, re-established by the
famous Abbe Bernier [Mr. Muller doubtless means Banier], and not quite
extinct even now. According to another school, the irrational element
in mythology is inevitable, and due to the influence of language on
thought, so that many of the legends of gods and heroes may be
rendered intelligible if only we can discover the original meaning of
their proper names. The followers of this school try to show that
Daphne, the laurel tree, was an old name for the dawn, and that
Phoibos was one of the many names of the sun, who pursued the dawn
till she vanished before his rays. Of these two schools, the former
has always appealed to the mythologies of savage nations, as showing
that gods and heroes were originally human beings, worshipped after
their death as ancestors and as gods, while the latter has confined
itself chiefly to an etymological analysis of mythological names in
Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, and other languages, such as had been
sufficiently studied to admit of a scientific, grammatical, and
etymological treatment.
This is a long text for our remarks on Hottentot mythology; but it is
necessary to prove that there are not two schools only of mythologists:
that there are inquirers who neither follow the path of the Abbe Banier,
nor of the philologists, but a third way, unknown to, or ignored by Mr.
Muller. We certainly were quite unaware that Banier and Euhemeros were
very specially concerned, as Mr. Muller thinks, with savage mythology;
but it is by aid of savage myths that the school unknown to Mr. Muller
examines the myths of civilised peoples like the Greeks. The disciples
of Mr. Muller interpret all the absurdities of Greek myth, the gods who
are beasts on occasion, the stars who were men, the men who become
serpents or deer, the deities who are cannibals and parricides and
adulterers, as the result of the influence of Aryan speech upon Aryan
thought. Men, in Mr. Muller's opinion, had originally pure ideas about
the gods, and expressed them in language which we should call figurative.
The figures remained, when their meaning was lost; the names were then
supposed to be gods, the nomina became numina, and out of the
inextricable confusion of thought which followed, the belief in cannibal,
bestial, adulterous, and incestuous gods was evolved. That is Mr.
Muller's hypothesis; with him the evolution, a result of a disease of
language, has been from early comparative purity to later religious
abominations. Opposed to him is what may be called the school of Mr.
Herbert Spencer: the modern Euhemerism, which recognises an element of
historical truth in myths, as if the characters had been real characters,
and which, in most gods, beholds ancestral ghosts raised to a higher
power.
There remains a third system of mythical interpretation, though Mr.
Muller says only two methods are possible. The method, in this third
case, is to see whether the irrational features and elements of civilised
Greek myth occur also in the myths of savages who speak languages quite
unlike those from whose diseases Mr. Muller derives the corruption of
religion. If the same features recur, are they as much in harmony with
the mental habits of savages, such as Bushmen and Hottentots, as they are
out of accord with the mental habits of civilised Greeks? If this
question can be answered in the affirmative, then it may be provisionally
assumed that the irrational elements of savage myth are the legacy of
savage modes of thought, and have survived in the religion of Greece from
a time when the ancestors of the Greeks were savages. But inquirers who
use this method do not in the least believe that either Greek or savage
gods were, for the more part, originally real men. Both Greeks and
savages have worshipped the ghosts of the dead. Both Greeks and savages
assign to their gods the miraculous powers of transformation and magic,
which savages also attribute to their conjurers or shamans. The mantle
(if he had a mantle) of the medicine-man has fallen on the god; but Zeus,
or Indra, was not once a real medicine-man. A number of factors combine
in the conception of Indra, or Zeus, as either god appears in Sanskrit or
Greek literature, of earlier or later date. Our school does not hold
anything so absurd as that Daphne was a real girl pursued by a young man.
But it has been observed that, among most savage races, metamorphoses
like that of Daphne not only exist in mythology, but are believed to
occur very frequently in actual life. Men and women are supposed to be
capable of turning into plants (as the bamboo in Sarawak), into animals,
and stones, and stars, and those metamorphoses happen as contemporary
events--for example, in Samoa. {200}
When Mr. Lane was living at Cairo, and translating the 'Arabian Nights,'
he found that the people still believed in metamorphosis. Any day, just
as in the 'Arabian Nights,' a man might find himself turned by an
enchanter into a pig or a horse. Similar beliefs, not derived from
language, supply the matter of the senseless incidents in Greek myths.
Savage mythology is also full of metamorphoses. Therefore the
mythologists whose case we are stating, when they find identical
metamorphoses in the classical mythologies, conjecture that these were
first invented when the ancestors of the Aryans were in the imaginative
condition in which a score of rude races are to-day. This explanation
they apply to many other irrational elements in mythology. They do not
say, 'Something like the events narrated in these stories once occurred,'
nor 'A disease of language caused the belief in such events,' but 'These
stories were invented when men were capable of believing in their
occurrence as a not unusual sort of incident'
Philologists attempt to explain the metamorphoses as the result of some
oblivion and confusion of language. Apollo, they say, was called the
'wolf-god' (Lukeios) by accident: his name really meant the 'god of
light.' A similar confusion made the 'seven shiners' into the 'seven
bears.' {201} These explanations are distrusted, partly because the area
to be covered by them is so vast. There is scarcely a star, tree, or
beast, but it has been a man or woman once, if we believe civilised and
savage myth. Two or three possible examples of myths originating in
forgetfulness of the meaning of words, even if admitted, do not explain
the incalculable crowd of metamorphoses. We account for these by saying
that, to the savage mind, which draws no hard and fast line between man
and nature, all such things are possible; possible enough, at least, to
be used as incidents in story. Again, as has elsewhere been shown, the
laxity of philological reasoning is often quite extraordinary; while,
lastly, philologists of the highest repute flatly contradict each other
about the meaning of the names and roots on which they agree in founding
their theory. {202a}
By way of an example of the philological method as applied to savage
mythology, we choose a book in many ways admirable, Dr. Hahn's 'Tsuni
Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi Khoi.' {202b} This book is sometimes
appealed to as a crushing argument against the mythologists who adopt the
method we have just explained. Let us see if the blow be so very
crushing. To put the case in a nutshell, the Hottentots have commonly
been described as a race which worshipped a dead chief, or conjurer--Tsui
Goab his name is, meaning Wounded Knee, a not unlikely name for a savage.
Dr. Hahn, on the other hand, labours to show that the Hottentots
originally worshipped no dead chief, but (as a symbol of the Infinite)
the Red Dawn. The meaning of the name Red Dawn, he says, was lost; the
words which meant Red Dawn were erroneously supposed to mean Wounded
Knee, and thus arose the adoration and the myths of a dead chief, or
wizard, Tsui Goab, Wounded Knee. Clearly, if this can be proved, it is
an excellent case for the philological school, an admirable example of a
myth produced by forgetfulness of the meaning of words. Our own opinion
is that, even if Tsui Goab originally meant Red Dawn, the being, as now
conceived of by his adorers, is bedizened in the trappings of the dead
medicine-man, and is worshipped just as ghosts of the dead are
worshipped. Thus, whatever his origin, his myth is freely coloured by
the savage fancy and by savage ideas, and we ask no more than this
colouring to explain the wildest Greek myths. What truly 'primitive'
religion was, we make no pretence to know. We only say that, whether
Greek religion arose from a pure fountain or not, its stream had flowed
through and been tinged by the soil of savage thought, before it widens
into our view in historical times. But it will be shown that the logic
which connects Tsui Goab with the Red Dawn is far indeed from being
cogent.
Tsui Goab is thought by the Hottentots themselves to be a dead man, and
it is admitted that among the Hottentots dead men are adored. 'Cairns
are still objects of worship,' {203a} and Tsui Goab lies beneath several
cairns. Again, soothsayers are believed in (p. 24), and Tsui Goab is
regarded as a deceased soothsayer. As early as 1655, a witness quoted by
Hahn saw women worshipping at one of the cairns of Heitsi Eibib, another
supposed ancestral being. Kolb, the old Dutch traveller, found that the
Hottentots, like the Bushmen, revered the mantis insect. This creature
they called Gaunab. They also had some moon myths, practised adoration
of the moon, and danced at dawn. Thunberg (1792) saw the cairn-worship,
and, on asking its meaning, was told that a Hottentot lay buried there.
{203b} Thunberg also heard of the worship of the mantis, or grey
grasshopper. In 1803 Liechtenstein noted the cairn-worship, and was told
that a renowned Hottentot doctor of old times rested under the cairn.
Appleyard's account of 'the name God in Khoi Khoi, or Hottentot,'
deserves quoting in full:--
Hottentot: Tsoei'koap.
Namaqua: Tsoei'koap.
Koranna: Tshu'koab, and the author adds: 'This is the word from which
the Kafirs have probably derived their u-Tixo, a term which they have
universally applied, like the Hottentots, to designate the Divine
Being, since the introduction of Christianity. Its derivation is
curious. It consists of two words, which together mean the "wounded
knee." It is said to have been originally applied to a doctor or
sorcerer of considerable notoriety and skill amongst the Hottentots or
Namaquas some generations back, in consequence of his having received
some injury in his knee. Having been held in high repute for
extraordinary powers during life, he appeared to be invoked even after
death, as one who could still relieve and protect; and hence, in
process of time, he became nearest in idea to their first conceptions
of God.'
Other missionaries make old Wounded Knee a good sort of being on the
whole, who fights Gaunab, a bad being. Dr. Moffat heard that 'Tsui Kuap'
was 'a notable warrior,' who once received a wound in the knee. Sir
James Alexander {204} found that the Namaquas believed their 'great
father' lay below the cairns on which they flung boughs. This great
father was Heitsi Eibib, and, like other medicine-men, 'he could take
many forms.' Like Tsui Goab, he died several times and rose again. Hahn
gives (p. 61) a long account of the Wounded Knee from an old chief, and a
story of the battle between Tsui Goab, who 'lives in a beautiful heaven,'
and Gaunab, who 'lives in a dark heaven.' As this chief had dwelt among
missionaries very long, we may perhaps discount his remarks on 'heaven'
as borrowed. Hahn thinks they refer to the red sky in which Tsui Goab
lived, and to the black sky which was the home of Gaunab. The two
characters in this crude religious dualism thus inhabit light and
darkness respectively.
* * * * *
As far as we have gone, Tsui Goab, like Heitsi Eibib among the Namas, is
a dead sorcerer, whose graves are worshipped, while, with a common
inconsistency, he is also thought of as dwelling in the sky. Even
Christians often speak of the dead with similar inconsistency. Tsui
Goab's worship is intelligible enough among a people so credulous that
they took Hahn himself for a conjurer (p. 81), and so given to ancestor-
worship that Hahn has seen them worship their own fathers' graves, and
expect help from men recently dead (pp. 112, 113). But, while the Khoi
Khoi think that Tsui Goab was once a real man, we need not share their
Euhemerism. More probably, like Unkulunkulu among the Zulus, Tsui Goab
is an ideal, imaginary ancestral sorcerer and god. No one man requires
many graves, and Tsui Goab has more than Osiris possessed in Egypt. {205}
If the Egyptians in some immeasurably distant past were once on the level
of Namas and Hottentots, they would worship Osiris at as many barrows as
Heitsi Eibib and Tsui Goab are adored. In later times the numerous
graves of one being would require explanation, and explanations would be
furnished by the myth that the body of Osiris was torn to pieces and each
fragment buried in a separate tomb.
Again, lame gods occur in Greek, Australian, and Brazilian creeds, and
the very coincidence of Tsui Goab's lameness makes us sceptical about his
claims to be a real dead man. On the other hand, when Hahn tells us that
epical myths are now sung in the dances in honour of warriors lately
slain (p. 103), and that similar dances and songs were performed in the
past to honour Tsui Goab, this looks more as if Tsui Goab had been an
actual person. Against this we must set (p. 105) the belief that Tsui
Goab made the first man and woman, and was the Prometheus of the
Hottentots.
* * * * *
So far Dr. Hahn has given us facts which entirely fit in with our theory
that an ancestor-worshipping people, believing in metamorphosis and
sorcery, adores a god who is supposed to be a deceased ancestral sorcerer
with the power of magic and metamorphosis. But now Dr. Hahn offers his
own explanation. According to the philological method, he will 'study
the names of the persons, until we arrive at the naked root and original
meanings of the words.' Starting then with Tsui Goab, whom all evidence
declares to be a dead lame conjurer and warrior, Dr. Hahn avers that
'Tsui Goab, originally Tsuni Goam, was the name by which the Red Men
called the Infinite.' As the Frenchman said of the derivation of jour
from _dies_, we may hint that the Infinite thus transformed into a lame
Hottentot 'bush-doctor' is diablement change en route. To a dead lame
sorcerer from the Infinite is a fall indeed. The process of the decline
is thus described. Tsui Goab is composed of two roots, tsu and goa. Goa
means 'to go on,' 'to come on.' In Khoi Khoi goa-b means 'the coming on
one,' the dawn, and goa-b also means 'the knee.' Dr. Hahn next writes
(making a logical leap of extraordinary width), 'it is now obvious that,
//goab in Tsui Goab cannot be translated with knee,'--why not?--'but we
have to adopt the other metaphorical meaning, the _approaching_ day, i.e.
the dawn.' Where is the necessity? In ordinary philology, we should
here demand a number of attested examples of goab, in the sense of dawn,
but in Khoi Khoi we cannot expect such evidence, as there are probably no
texts. Next, after arbitrarily deciding that all Khoi Khois
misunderstand their own tongue (for that is what the rendering here of
goab by 'dawn' comes to), Dr. Hahn examines tsu, in Tsui. Tsu means
'sore,' 'wounded,' 'painful,' as in 'wounded knee'--Tsui Goab. This does
not help Dr Hahn, for 'wounded dawn' means nothing. But he reflects that
a wound is red, tsu means wounded: therefore tsu means red, therefore
Tsui Goab is the Red Dawn. Q.E.D.
This kind of reasoning is obviously fallacious. Dr. Hahn's point could
only be made by bringing forward examples in which tsu is employed to
mean red in Khoi Khoi. Of this use of the word tsu he does not give one
single instance, though on this point his argument depends. His
etymology is not strengthened by the fact that Tsui Goab has once been
said to live in the red sky. A red house is not necessarily tenanted by
a red man. Still less is the theory supported by the hymn which says
Tsui Goab paints himself with red ochre. Most idols, from those of the
Samoyeds to the Greek images of Dionysus, are and have been daubed with
red. By such reasoning is Tsui Goab proved to be the Red Dawn, while his
gifts of prophecy (which he shares with all soothsayers) are accounted
for as attributes of dawn, of the Vedic Saranyu.
Turning from Tsui Goab to his old enemy Gaunab, we learn that his name is
derived from //gau, 'to destroy,' and, according to old Hottentot ideas,
'no one was the destroyer but the night' (p. 126). There is no apparent
reason why the destroyer should be the night, and the night alone, any
more than why 'a lame broken knee' should be 'red' (p. 126). Besides (p.
85), Gaunab is elsewhere explained, not as the night, but as the
malevolent ghost which is thought to kill people who die what we call a
'natural' death. Unburied men change into this sort of vampire, just as
Elpenor, in the Odyssey, threatens, if unburied, to become mischievous.
There is another Gaunab, the mantis insect, which is worshipped by
Hottentots and Bushmen (p. 92). It appears that the two Gaunabs are
differently pronounced. However that may be, a race which worships an
insect might well worship a dead medicine-man.
* * * * *
The conclusion, then, to be drawn from an examination of Hottentot
mythology is merely this, that the ideas of a people will be reflected in
their myths. A people which worships the dead, believes in sorcerers and
in prophets, and in metamorphosis, will have for its god (if he can be
called a god) a being who is looked on as a dead prophet and sorcerer. He
will be worshipped with such rites as dead men receive; he will be mixed
up in such battles as living men wage, and will be credited with the
skill which living sorcerers claim. All these things meet in the legend
of Tsui Goab, the so-called 'supreme being' of the Hottentots. His
connection with the dawn is not supported by convincing argument or
evidence. The relation of the dawn to the Infinite again rests on
nothing but a theory of Mr. Max Muller's. {209} His adversary, though
recognised as the night, is elsewhere admitted to have been, originally,
a common vampire. Finally, the Hottentots, a people not much removed
from savagery, have a mythology full of savage and even disgusting
elements. And this is just what we expect from Hottentots. The puzzle
is when we find myths as low as the story of the incest of Heitsi Eibib
among the Greeks. The reason for this coincidence is that, in Dr. Hahn's
words, 'the same objects and the same phenomena in nature will give rise
to the same ideas, whether social or mythical, among different races of
mankind,' especially when these races are in the same well-defined state
of savage fancy and savage credulity.
Dr. Hahn's book has been regarded as a kind of triumph over inquirers who
believe that ancestor-worship enters into myth, and that the purer
element in myth is the later. But where is the triumph? Even on Dr.
Hahn's own showing, ancestor-worship among the Hottentots has swamped the
adoration of the Infinite. It may be said that Dr. Hahn has at least
proved the adoration of the Infinite to be earlier than ancestor-worship.
But it has been shown that his attempt to establish a middle stage, to
demonstrate that the worshipped ancestor was really the Red Dawn, is not
logical nor convincing. Even if that middle stage were established, it
is a far cry from the worship of Dawn (supposed by the Australians to be
a woman of bad character in a cloak of red' possum-skin) to the adoration
of the Infinite. Our own argument has been successful if we have shown
that there are not only two possible schools of mythological
interpretation--the Euhemeristic, led by Mr. Spencer, and the
Philological, led by Mr. Max Muller. We have seen that it is possible to
explain the legend of Tsui Goab without either believing him to have been
a real historical person (as Mr. Spencer may perhaps believe), or his
myth to have been the result of a 'disease of language' as Mr. Muller
supposes. We have explained the legend and worship of a supposed dead
conjurer as natural to a race which believes in conjurers and worships
dead men. Whether he was merely an ideal ancestor and warrior, or
whether an actual man has been invested with what divine qualities Tsui
Goab enjoys, it is impossible to say; but, if he ever lived, he has long
been adorned with ideal qualities and virtues which he never possessed.
The conception of the powerful ancestral ghost has been heightened and
adorned with some novel attributes of power: the conception of the
Infinite has not been degraded, by forgetfulness of language, to the
estate of an ancestral ghost with a game leg.
* * * * *
If this view be correct, myth is the result of thought, far more than of
a disease of language. The comparative importance of language and
thought was settled long ago, in our sense, by no less a person than
Pragapati, the Sanskrit Master of Life.
'Now a dispute once took place between Mind and Speech, as to which was
the better of the two. Both Mind and Speech said, "I am excellent!" Mind
said, "Surely I am better than thou, for thou dost not speak anything
that is not understood by me; and since thou art only an imitator of what
is done by me and a follower in my wake, I am surely better than thou!"
Speech said, "Surely I am better than thou, for what thou knowest I make
known, I communicate." They went to appeal to Pragapati for his
decision. He (Pragapati) decided in favour of Mind, saying (to Speech),
"Mind is indeed better than thou, for thou art an imitator of its deeds,
and a follower in its wake; and inferior, surely, is he who imitates his
better's deeds, and follows in his wake."'