Lang Andrew
Modern Mythology
The Fallacy of ‘Admits’
As the purpose of this essay is mainly logical, I may point out the existence of a fallacy not marked, I think, in handbooks of Logic. This is the fallacy of saying that an opponent ‘admits’ what, on the contrary, he has been the first to point out and proclaim. He is thus suggested into an attitude which is the reverse of his own. Some one – I am sorry to say that I forget who he was – showed me that Fontenelle, in De l’Origine des Fables, 132 briefly stated the anthropological theory of the origin of myths, or at least of that repulsive element in them which ‘makes mythology mythological,’ as Mr. Max Müller says. I was glad to have a predecessor in a past less remote than that of Eusebius of Cæsarea. ‘A briefer and better system of mythology,’ I wrote, ‘could not be devised; but the Mr. Casaubons of this world have neglected it, and even now it is beyond their comprehension.’ 133 To say this in this manner is not to ‘admit that we have not got much beyond Fontenelle.’ I do not want to get beyond Fontenelle. I want to go back to his ‘forgotten common-sense,’ and to apply his ideas with method and criticism to a range of materials which he did not possess or did not investigate.
Now, on p. 15, Mr. Max Müller had got as far as accepting Fontenelle; on pp. 197, 198 he burns, as it were, that to which he had ‘gladly subscribed.’
Conclusion as to our Method
All this discussion of fetishes arose out of our author’s selection of the subject as an example of the viciousness of our method. He would not permit us ‘simply to place side by side’ savage and Greek myths and customs, because it did harm (i. 195); and the harm done was proved by the Nemesis of De Brosses. Now, first, a method may be a good method, yet may be badly applied. Secondly, I have shown that the Nemesis does not attach to all of us modern anthropologists. Thirdly, I have proved (unless I am under some misapprehension, which I vainly attempt to detect, and for which, if it exists, I apologise humbly) that Mr. Max Müller, on p. 15, accepts the doctrine which he denounces on p. 197. 134 Again, I am entirely at one with Mr. Max Müller when he says (p. 210) ‘we have as yet really no scientific treatment of Shamanism.’ This is a pressing need, but probably a physician alone could do the work – a physician doublé with a psychologist. See, however, the excellent pages in Dr. Tylor’s Primitive Culture, and in Mr. William James’s Principles of Psychology, on ‘Mediumship.’
THE RIDDLE THEORY
What the Philological Theory Needs
The great desideratum of the philological method is a proof that the ‘Disease of Language,’ ex hypothesi the most fertile source of myths, is a vera causa. Do simple poetical phrases, descriptive of heavenly phenomena, remain current in the popular mouth after the meanings of appellatives (Bright One, Dark One, &c.) have been forgotten, so that these appellatives become proper names – Apollo, Daphne, &c.? Mr. Max Müller seems to think some proof of this process as a vera causa may be derived from ‘Folk Riddles.’
The Riddle Theory
We now come, therefore, to the author’s treatment of popular riddles (devinettes), so common among savages and peasants. Their construction is simple: anything in Nature you please is described by a poetical periphrasis, and you are asked what it is. Thus Geistiblindr asks,
What is the Dark One
That goes over the earth,
Swallows water and wood,
But is afraid of the wind? &c.
Or we find,
What is the gold spun from one window to another?
The answers, the obvious answers, are (1) ‘mist’ and (2) ‘sunshine.’
In Mr. Max Müller’s opinion these riddles ‘could not but lead to what we call popular myths or legends.’ Very probably; but this does not aid us to accept the philological method. The very essence of that method is the presumed absolute loss of the meaning of, e.g. ‘the Dark One.’ Before there can be a myth, ex hypothesi the words Dark One must have become hopelessly unintelligible, must have become a proper name. Thus suppose, for argument’s sake only, that Cronos once meant Dark One, and was understood in that sense. People (as in the Norse riddle just cited) said, ‘Cronos [i.e. the Dark One – meaning mist] swallows water and wood.’ Then they forgot that Cronos was their old word for the Dark One, and was mist; but they kept up, and understood, all the rest of the phrase about what mist does. The expression now ran, ‘Cronos [whatever that may be] swallows water and wood.’ But water comes from mist, and water nourishes wood, therefore ‘Cronos swallows his children.’ Such would be the development of a myth on Mr. Max Müller’s system. He would interpret ‘Cronos swallows his children,’ by finding, if he could, the original meaning of Cronos. Let us say that he did discover it to mean ‘the Dark One.’ Then he might think Cronos meant ‘night;’ ‘mist’ he would hardly guess.
That is all very clear, but the point is this – in devinettes, or riddles, the meaning of ‘the Dark One’ is not lost: —
‘Thy riddle is easy
Blind Gest,
To read’ —
Heidrick answers.
What the philological method of mythology needs is to prove that such poetical statements about natural phenomena as the devinettes contain survived in the popular mouth, and were perfectly intelligible except just the one mot d’énigme – say, ‘the Dark One.’ That (call it Cronos=‘Dark One’), and that alone, became unintelligible in the changes of language, and so had to be accepted as a proper name, Cronos – a god who swallows things at large.
Where is the proof of such endurance of intelligible phrases with just the one central necessary word obsolete and changed into a mysterious proper name? The world is full of proper names which have lost their meaning – Athene, Achilles, Artemis, and so on but we need proof that poetical sayings, or riddles, survive and are intelligible except one word, which, being unintelligible, becomes a proper name. Riddles, of course, prove nothing of this kind: —
Thy riddle is easy
Blind Gest
To read!
Yet Mr. Max Müller offers the suggestion that the obscurity of many of these names of mythical gods and heroes ‘may be due.. to the riddles to which they had given rise, and which would have ceased to be riddles if the names had been clear and intelligible, like those of Helios and Selene’ (i. 92). People, he thinks, in making riddles ‘would avoid the ordinary appellatives, and the use of little-known names in most mythologies would thus find an intelligible explanation.’ Again, ‘we can see how essential it was that in such mythological riddles the principal agents should not be called by their regular names.’ This last remark, indeed, is obvious. To return to the Norse riddle of the Dark One that swallows wood and water. It would never do in a riddle to call the Dark One by his ordinary name, ‘Mist.’ You would not amuse a rural audience by asking ‘What is the mist that swallows wood and water?’ That would be even easier than Mr. Burnand’s riddle for very hot weather: —
My first is a boot, my second is a jack.
Conceivably Mr. Max Müller may mean that in riddles an almost obsolete word was used to designate the object. Perhaps, instead of ‘the Dark One,’ a peasant would say, ‘What is the Rooky One?’ But as soon as nobody knew what ‘the Rooky One’ meant, the riddle would cease to exist – Rooky One and all. You cannot imagine several generations asking each other —
What is the Rooky One that swallows?
if nobody knew the answer. A man who kept boring people with a mere ‘sell’ would be scouted; and with the death of the answerless riddle the difficult word ‘Rooky’ would die. But Mr. Max Müller says, ‘Riddles would cease to be riddles if the names had been clear and intelligible.’ The reverse is the fact. In the riddles he gives there are seldom any ‘names;’ but the epithets and descriptions are as clear as words can be: —
Who are the mother and children in a house, all having bald heads? – The moon and stars.
Language cannot be clearer. Yet the riddle has not ‘ceased to be a riddle,’ as Mr. Max Müller thinks it must do, though the words are ‘clear and intelligible.’ On the other hand, if the language is not clear and intelligible, the riddle would cease to exist. It would not amuse if nobody understood it. You might as well try to make yourself socially acceptable by putting conundrums in Etruscan as by asking riddles in words not clear and intelligible in themselves, though obscure in their reference. The difficulty of a riddle consists, not in the obscurity of words or names, but in the description of familiar things by terms, clear as terms, denoting their appearance and action. The mist is described as ‘dark,’ ‘swallowing,’ ‘one that fears the wind,’ and so forth. The words are pellucid.
Thus ‘ordinary appellatives’ (i. 99) are not ‘avoided’ in riddles, though names (sun, mist) cannot be used in the question because they give the answer to the riddle.
For all these reasons ancient riddles cannot explain the obscurity of mythological names. As soon as the name was too obscure, the riddle and the name would be forgotten, would die together. So we know as little as ever of the purely hypothetical process by which a riddle, or popular poetical saying, remains intelligible in a language, while the mot d’énigme, becoming unintelligible, turns into a proper name – say, Cronos. Yet the belief in this process as a vera causa is essential to our author’s method.
Here Mr. Max Müller warns us that his riddle theory is not meant to explain ‘the obscurities of all mythological names. This is a stratagem that should be stopped from the very first.’ It were more graceful to have said ‘a misapprehension.’
Another ‘stratagem’ I myself must guard against. I do not say that no unintelligible strings of obsolete words may continue to live in the popular mouth. Old hymns, ritual speeches, and charms may and do survive, though unintelligible. They are reckoned all the more potent, because all the more mysterious. But an unintelligible riddle or poetical saying does not survive, so we cannot thus account for mythology as a disease of language.
Mordvinian Mythology
Still in the very natural and laudable pursuit of facts which will support the hypothesis of a disease of language, Mr. Max Müller turns to Mordvinian mythology. ‘We have the accounts of real scholars’ about Mordvinian prayers, charms, and proverbs (i. 235). The Mordvinians, Ugrian tribes, have the usual departmental Nature-gods – as Chkaï, god of the sun (chi=sun). He ‘lives in the sun, or is the sun’ (i. 236). His wife is the Earth or earth goddess, Védiava. They have a large family, given to incest. The morals of the Mordvinian gods are as lax as those of Mordvinian mortals. (Compare the myths and morals of Samos, and the Samian Hera.) Athwart the decent god Chkaï comes the evil god Chaitan – obviously Shaitan, a Mahommedan contamination. There are plenty of minor gods, and spirits good and bad. Dawn was a Mordvinian girl; in Australia she was a lubra addicted to lubricity.
How does this help philological mythology?
Mr. Max Müller is pleased to find solar and other elemental gods among the Mordvinians. But the discovery in no way aids his special theory. Nobody has ever denied that gods who are the sun or live in the sun are familiar, and are the centres of myths among most races. I give examples in C. and M. (pp. 104, 133, New Zealand and North America) and in M. R. R. (i. 124-135, America, Africa, Australia, Aztec, Hervey Islands, Samoa, and so on). Such Nature-myths – of sun, sky, earth – are perhaps universal; but they do not arise from disease of language. These myths deal with natural phenomena plainly and explicitly. The same is the case among the Mordvinians. ‘The few names preserved to us are clearly the names of the agents behind the salient phenomena of Nature, in some cases quite intelligible, in others easily restored to their original meaning.’ The meanings of the names not being forgotten, but obvious, there is no disease of language. All this does not illustrate the case of Greek divine names by resemblance, but by difference. Real scholars know what Mordvinian divine names mean. They do not know what many Greek divine names mean – as Hera, Artemis, Apollo, Athene; there is even much dispute about Demeter.
No anthropologist, I hope, is denying that Nature-myths and Nature-gods exist. We are only fighting against the philological effort to get at the elemental phenomena which may be behind Hera, Artemis, Athene, Apollo, by means of contending etymological conjectures. We only oppose the philological attempt to account for all the features in a god’s myth as manifestations of the elemental qualities denoted by a name which may mean at pleasure dawn, storm, clear air, thunder, wind, twilight, water, or what you will. Granting Chkaï to be the sun, does that explain why he punishes people who bake bread on Friday? (237.) Our opponent does not seem to understand the portée of our objections. The same remarks apply to the statement of Finnish mythology here given, and familiar in the Kalewala. Departmental divine beings of natural phenomena we find everywhere, or nearly everywhere, in company, of course, with other elements of belief – totemism, worship of spirits, perhaps with monotheism in the background. That is as much our opinion as Mr. Max Müller’s. What we are opposing is the theory of disease of language, and the attempt to explain, by philological conjectures, gods and heroes whose obscure names are the only sources of information.
Helios is the sun-god; he is, or lives in, the sun. Apollo may have been the sun-god too, but we still distrust the attempts to prove this by contending guesses at the origin of his name. Moreover, if all Greek gods could be certainly explained, by undisputed etymologies, as originally elemental, we still object to such logic as that which turns Saranyu into ‘grey dawn.’ We still object to the competing interpretations by which almost every detail of very composite myths is explained as a poetical description of some elemental process or phenomenon. Apollo may once have been the sun, but why did he make love as a dog?
Lettish Mythology
These remarks apply equally well to our author’s dissertation on Lettish mythology (ii. 430 et seq.). The meaning of statements about the sun and sky ‘is not to be mistaken in the mythology of the Letts.’ So here is no disease of language. The meaning is not to be mistaken. Sun and moon and so on are spoken of by their natural unmistakable names, or in equally unmistakable poetical periphrases, as in riddles. The daughter of the sun hung a red cloak on a great oak-tree. This ‘can hardly have been meant for anything but the red of the evening or the setting sun, sometimes called her red cloak’ (ii. 439). Exactly so, and the Australians of Encounter Bay also think that the sun is a woman. ‘She has a lover among the dead, who has given her a red kangaroo skin, and in this she appears at her rising.’ 135 This tale was told to Mr. Meyer in 1846, before Mr. Max Müller’s Dawn had become ‘inevitable,’ as he says.
The Lettish and Australian myths are folk-poetry; they have nothing to do with a disease of language or forgotten meanings of words which become proper names. All this is surely distinct. We proclaim the abundance of poetical Nature-myths; we ‘disable’ the hypothesis that they arise from a disease of language.
The Chances of Fancy
One remark has to be added. Mannhardt regarded many or most of the philological solutions of gods into dawn or sun, or thunder or cloud, as empty jeux d’esprit. And justly, for there is no name named among men which a philologist cannot easily prove to be a synonym or metaphorical term for wind or weather, dawn or sun. Whatever attribute any word connotes, it can be shown to connote some attribute of dawn or sun. Here parody comes in, and gives a not overstrained copy of the method, applying it to Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Nansen, or whom you please. And though a jest is not a refutation, a parody may plainly show the absolutely capricious character of the philological method.
ARTEMIS
I do not here examine our author’s constructive work. I have often criticised its logical method before, and need not repeat myself. The etymologies, of course, I leave to be discussed by scholars. As we have seen, they are at odds on the subject of phonetic laws and their application to mythological names. On the mosses and bogs of this Debatable Land some of them propose to erect the science of comparative mythology. Meanwhile we look on, waiting till the mosses shall support a ponderous edifice.
Our author’s treatment of Artemis, however, has for me a peculiar interest (ii. 733-743). I really think that it is not mere vanity which makes me suppose that in this instance I am at least one of the authors whom Mr. Max Müller is writing about without name or reference. If so, he here sharply distinguishes between me on the one hand and ‘classical scholars’ on the other, a point to which we shall return. He says – I cite textually (ii. 732): —
Artemis
‘The last of the great Greek goddesses whom we have to consider is Artemis. Her name, we shall see, has received many interpretations, but none that can be considered as well established – none that, even if it were so, would help us much in disentangling the many myths told about her. Easy to understand as her character seems when we confine our attention to Homer, it becomes extremely complicated when we take into account the numerous local forms of worship of which she was the object.
‘We have here a good opportunity of comparing the interpretations put forward by those who think that a study of the myths and customs of uncivilised tribes can help us towards an understanding of Greek deities, and the views advocated by classical scholars 136 who draw their information, first of all, from Greek sources, and afterwards only from a comparison of the myths and customs of cognate races, more particularly from what is preserved to us in ancient Vedic literature, before they plunge into the whirlpool of ill-defined and unintelligible Kafir folklore. The former undertake to explain Artemis by showing us the progress of human intelligence from the coarsest spontaneous and primitive ideas to the most beautiful and brilliant conception of poets and sculptors. They point out traces of hideous cruelties amounting almost to cannibalism, and of a savage cult of beasts in the earlier history of the goddess, who was celebrated by dances of young girls disguised as bears or imitating the movements of bears, &c. She was represented as πολυμαστος, and this idea, we are told, was borrowed from the East, which is a large term. We are told that her most ancient history is to be studied in Arkadia, where we can see the goddess still closely connected with the worship of animals, a characteristic feature of the lowest stage of religious worship among the lowest races of mankind. We are then told the old story of Lykâon, the King of Arkadia, who had a beautiful daughter called Kallisto. As Zeus fell in love with her, Hêra from jealousy changed her into a bear, and Artemis killed her with one of her arrows. Her child, however, was saved by Hermes, at the command of Zeus; and while Kallisto was changed to the constellation of the Ursa, her son Arkas became the ancestor of the Arkadians. Here, we are told, we have a clear instance of men being the descendants of animals, and of women being changed into wild beasts and stars – beliefs well known among the Cahrocs and the Kamilarois.’
*****
Here I recognise Mr. Max Müller’s version of my remarks on Artemis. 137 Our author has just remarked in a footnote that Schwartz ‘does not mention the title of the book where his evidence has been given.’ It is an inconvenient practice, but with Mr. Max Müller this reticence is by no means unusual. He ‘does not mention the book where ‘my ‘evidence is given.’
Anthropologists are here (unless I am mistaken) contrasted with ‘classical scholars who draw their information, first of all, from Greek sources.’ I need not assure anyone who has looked into my imperfect works that I also drew my information about Artemis ‘first of all from Greek sources,’ in the original. Many of these sources, to the best of my knowledge, are not translated: one, Homer, I have translated myself, with Professor Butcher and Messrs. Leaf and Myers, my old friends.
The idea and representation of Artemis as πολυμαστος (many-breasted), ‘we are told, was borrowed from the East, a large term.’ I say ‘she is even blended in ritual with a monstrous many-breasted divinity of Oriental religion.’ 138 Is this ‘large term’ too vague? Then consider the Artemis of Ephesus and ‘the alabaster statuette of the goddess’ in Roscher’s Lexikon, p. 558. Compare, for an Occidental parallel, the many-breasted goddess of the maguey plant, in Mexico. 139 Our author writes, ‘we are told that Artemis’s most ancient history is to be studied in Arkadia.’ My words are, ‘The Attic and Arcadian legends of Artemis are confessedly among the oldest.’ Why should ‘Attic’ and the qualifying phrase be omitted?
Otfried Müller
Mr. Max Müller goes on – citing, as I also do, Otfried Müller: – ‘Otfried Müller in 1825 treated the same myth without availing himself of the light now to be derived from the Cahrocs and the Kamilarois. He quoted Pausanias as stating that the tumulus of Kallisto was near the sanctuary of Artemis Kallistê, and he simply took Kallisto for an epithet of Artemis, which, as in many other cases, had been taken for a separate personality.’ Otfried also pointed out, as we both say, that at Brauron, in Attica, Artemis was served by young maidens called αρκτοι (bears); and he concluded, ‘This cannot possibly be a freak of chance, but the metamorphosis [of Kallisto] has its foundation in the fact that the animal [the bear] was sacred to the goddess.’
Thus it is acknowledged that Artemis, under her name of Callisto, was changed into a she-bear, and had issue, Arkas – whence the Arcadians. Mr. Max Müller proceeds (ii. 734) – ‘He [Otfried] did not go so far as some modern mythologists who want us to believe that originally the animal, the she-bear, was the goddess, and that a later worship had replaced the ancient worship of the animal pur et simple.’
Did I, then, tell anybody that ‘originally the she-bear was the goddess’? No, I gave my reader, not a dogma, but the choice between two alternative hypotheses. I said, ‘It will become probable that the she-bear actually was the goddess at an extremely remote period, or at all events that the goddess succeeded to, and threw her protection over, an ancient worship of the animal’ (ii. 212, 213).
Mr. Max Müller’s error, it will be observed, consists in writing ‘and’ where I wrote ‘or.’ To make such rather essential mistakes is human; to give references is convenient, and not unscholarly.
In fact, this is Mr. Max Müller’s own opinion, for he next reports his anonymous author (myself) as saying (‘we are now told’), ‘though without any reference to Pausanias or any other Greek writers, that the young maidens, the αρκτοι, when dancing around Artemis, were clad in bearskins, and that this is a pretty frequent custom in the dances of totemic races. In support of this, however, we are not referred to really totemic races.. but to the Hirpi of Italy, and to the Διος κωδων in Egypt.’ Of course I never said that the αρκτοι danced around Artemis! I did say, after observing that they were described as ‘playing the bear,’ ‘they even in archaic ages wore bear-skins,’ for which I cited Claus 140 and referred to Suchier, 141 including the reference in brackets [] to indicate that I borrowed it from a book which I was unable to procure. 142 I then gave references for the classical use of a saffron vest by the αρκτοι.
Beast Dances
For the use of beast-skins in such dances among totemists I cite Bancroft (iii. 168) and (M. R. R. ii. 107) Robinson 143 (same authority). I may now also refer to Robertson Smith: 144 ‘the meaning of such a disguise [a fish-skin, among the Assyrians] is well known from many savage rituals; it means that the worshipper presents himself as a fish,’ as a bear, or what not. 145 Doubtless I might have referred more copiously to savage rituals, but really I thought that savage dances in beast-skins were familiar from Catlin’s engravings of Mandan and Nootka wolf or buffalo dances. I add that the Brauronian rites ‘point to a time when the goddess was herself a bear,’ having suggested an alternative theory, and added confirmation. 146 But I here confess that while beast-dances and wearing of skins of sacred beasts are common, to prove these sacred beasts to be totems is another matter. It is so far inferred rather than demonstrated. Next I said that the evolution of the bear into the classical Artemis ‘almost escapes our inquiry. We find nothing more akin to it than the relation borne by the Samoan gods to the various totems in which they are supposed to be manifest.’ This Mr. Max Müller quotes (of course, without reference or marks of quotation) and adds, ‘pace Dr. Codrington.’ Have I incurred Dr. Codrington’s feud? He doubts or denies totems in Melanesia. Is Samoa in Melanesia, par exemple? 147 Our author (i. 206) says that ‘Dr. Codrington will have no totems in his islands.’ But Samoa is not one of the doctor’s fortunate isles. For Samoa I refer, not to Dr. Codrington, but to Mr. Turner. 148 In Samoa the ‘clans’ revere each its own sacred animals, ‘but combine with it the belief that the spiritual deity reveals itself in each separate animal.’ 149 I expressly contrast the Samoan creed with ‘pure totemism.’ 150
So much for our author’s success in stating and criticising my ideas. If he pleases, I will not speak of Samoan totems, but of Samoan sacred animals. It is better and more exact.
The View of Classical Scholars
They (ii. 735) begin by pointing out Artemis’s connection with Apollo and the moon. So do I! ‘If Apollo soon disengages himself from the sun.. Artemis retains as few traces of any connection with the moon.’ 151 ‘If Apollo was of solar origin,’ asks the author (ii. 735), ‘what could his sister Artemis have been, from the very beginning, if not some goddess connected with the moon?’ Very likely; quis negavit? Then our author, like myself (loc. cit.), dilates on Artemis as ‘sister of Apollo.’ ‘Her chapels,’ I say, ‘are in the wild wood; she is the abbess of the forest nymphs,’ ‘chaste and fair, the maiden of the precise life.’ How odd! The classical scholar and I both say the same things; and I add a sonnet to Artemis in this aspect, rendered by me from the Hippolytus of Euripides. Could a classical scholar do more? Our author then says that the Greek sportsman ‘surprised the beasts in their lairs’ by night. Not very sportsmanlike! I don’t find it in Homer or in Xenophon. Oh for exact references! The moon, the nocturnal sportswoman, is Artemis: here we have also the authority of Théodore de Banville (Diane court dans la noire forêt). And the nocturnal hunt is Dian’s; so she is protectress of the chase. Exactly what I said! 152
All this being granted by me beforehand (though possibly that might not be guessed from my critic), our author will explain Artemis’s human sacrifice of a girl in a fawn-skin – bloodshed, bear and all – with no aid from Kamilarois, Cahrocs, and Samoans.
Mr. Max Müller’s Explanation
Greek races traced to Zeus – usually disguised, for amorous purposes, as a brute. The Arcadians had an eponymous heroic ancestor, ‘Areas;’ they also worshipped Artemis. Artemis, as a virgin, could not become a mother of Areas by Zeus, or by anybody. Callisto was also Artemis. Callisto was the mother of Areas. But, to save the character of Artemis, Callisto was now represented as one of her nymphs. Then, Areas reminding the Arcadians of αρκτος (a bear), while they knew the Bear constellation, ‘what was more natural than that Callisto should be changed into an arktos, a she-bear.. placed by Zeus, her lover, in the sky’ as the Bear?
Nothing could be more natural to a savage; they all do it. 153 But that an Aryan, a Greek, should talk such nonsense as to say that he was the descendant of a bear who was changed into a star, and all merely because ‘Areas reminded the Arcadians of arktos,’ seems to me an extreme test of belief, and a very unlikely thing to occur.
Wider Application of the Theory
Let us apply the explanation more widely. Say that a hundred animal names are represented in the known totem-kindreds of the world. Then had each such kin originally an eponymous hero whose name, like that of Areas in Arcady, accidentally ‘reminded’ his successors of a beast, so that a hundred beasts came to be claimed as ancestors? Perhaps this was what occurred; the explanation, at all events, fits the wolf of the Delawares and the other ninety-nine as well as it fits the Arcades. By a curious coincidence all the names of eponymous heroes chanced to remind people of beasts. But whence come the names of eponymous heroes? From their tribes, of course – Ion from Ionians, Dorus from Dorians, and so on. Therefore (in the hundred cases) the names of the tribes derive from names of animals. Indeed, the names of totem-kins are the names of animals – wolves, bears, cranes. Mr. Max Müller remarks that the name ‘Arcades’ may come from αρκτος, a bear (i. 738); so the Arcadians (Proselenoi, the oldest of races, ‘men before the moon’) may be – Bears. So, of course (in this case), they would necessarily be Bears before they invented Areas, an eponymous hero whose name is derived from the pre-existing tribal name. His name, then, could not, before they invented it, remind them of a bear. It was from their name Αρκτοι (Bears) that they developed his name Areas, as in all such cases of eponymous heroes. I slightly incline to hold that this is exactly what occurred. A bear-kin claimed descent from a bear, and later, developing an eponymous hero, Areas, regarded him as son of a bear. Philologically ‘it is possible;’ I say no more.
