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 {14} 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.' {15a} 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 man's own
consciousness of life and personality. Dr. Tylor thinks that the opinion
rests upon 'a broad philosophy of nature.' {15b} M. Lefebure 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 {15c} before invoking it as an explanation of savage
belief in metamorphosis.
(3) 'The Tuna story belongs to a very well known class of aetiological
plant-stories' (aetiological: 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.' {16}
The reader has before him Mr. Max Muller's 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.