Modern Mythology Part 11

THE PHILOLOGICAL METHOD IN ANTHROPOLOGY

Mr. Max Muller as Ethnologist

Our author is apt to remonstrate with his anthropological critics, and to a.s.sure them that he also has made studies in ethnology. 'I am not such a despairer of ethnology as some ethnologists would have me.' He refers us to the a.s.sistance which he lent in bringing out Dr. Hahn's Tsuni-Goam (1881), Mr. Gill's Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (1876), and probably other examples could be added. But my objection is, not that we should be ungrateful to Mr. Max Muller for these and other valuable services to anthropology, but that, when he has got his anthropological material, he treats it in what I think the wrong way, or approves of its being so treated.

Here, indeed, is the irreconcilable difference between two schools of mythological interpretation. Given Dr. Hahn's book, on Hottentot manners and religion: the anthropologist compares the Hottentot rites, beliefs, social habits, and general ideas with those of other races known to him, savage or civilised. A Hottentot custom, which has a meaning among Hottentots, may exist where its meaning is lost, among Greeks or other 'Aryans.' A story of a Hottentot G.o.d, quite a natural sort of tale for a Hottentot to tell, may be told about a G.o.d in Greece, where it is contrary to the Greek spirit. We infer that the Greeks perhaps inherited it from savage ancestors, or borrowed it from savages.

Names of Savage G.o.ds

This is the method, and if we can also get a scholar to a.n.a.lyse the _names_ of Hottentot G.o.ds, we are all the luckier, that is, if his processes and inferences are _logical_. May we not decide on the _logic_ of scholars? But, just as Mr. Max Muller points out to us the dangers attending our evidence, we point out to him the dangers attending his method. In Dr. Hahn's book, the doctor a.n.a.lyses the meaning of the name Tsuni-Goam and other names, discovers their original sense, and from that sense explains the myths about Hottentot divine beings.

Here we anthropologists first ask Mr. Max Muller, before accepting Dr.

Hahn's etymologies, to listen to other scholars about the perils and difficulties of the philological a.n.a.lysis of divine names, even in Aryan languages. I have already quoted his 'defender,' Dr. Tiele. 'The philological method is inadequate and misleading, when it is a question of (1) discovering the origin of a myth, or (2) the physical explanation of the oldest myths, or (3) of accounting for the rude and obscene element in the divine legends of civilised races.'

To the two former purposes Dr. Hahn applies the philological method in the case of Tsuni-Goam. Other scholars agree with Dr. Tiele. Mannhardt, as we said, held that Mr. Max Muller's favourite etymological 'equations,' Sarameya=Hermeias; Saranyu=Demeter-Erinnys; Kentauros=Gandharvas and others, would not stand criticism. 'The method in its practical working shows a lack of the historical sense,' said Mannhardt. Curtius--a scholar, as Mr. Max Muller declares (i. 32)--says, 'It is especially difficult to conjecture the meaning of proper names, and above all of local and mythical names.' {106a} I do not see that it is easier when these names are not Greek, but Hottentot, or Algonquin!

Thus Achilles may as easily mean 'holder of the people' as 'holder of stones,' i.e. a River-G.o.d! Or does [Greek] suggest aqua, Achelous the River? Leto, mother of Apollo, cannot be from [Greek], as Mr. Max Muller holds (ii. 514, 515), to which Mr. Max Muller replies, perhaps not, as far as the phonetic rules go 'which determine the formation of appellative nouns. It, indeed, would be extraordinary if it were. . . .'

The phonetic rules in Hottentot may also suggest difficulties to a South African Curtius!

Other scholars agree with Curtius--agree in thinking that the etymology of mythical names is a sandy foundation for the science of mythology.

'The difficult task of interpreting mythical names has, so far, produced few certain results,' says Otto Schrader. {106b}

When Dr. Hahn applies the process in Hottentot, we urge with a friendly candour these cautions from scholars on Mr. Max Muller.

A Hottentot G.o.d

In Custom and Myth (p. 207), I examine the logic by which Dr. Hahn proves Tsuni-Goam to be 'The Red Dawn.' One of his steps is to say that few means 'sore,' or 'wounded,' and that a wound is _red_, so he gets his 'red' in Red Dawn. But of tsu in the sense of 'red' he gives not one example, while he does give another word for 'red,' or 'b.l.o.o.d.y.' This may be scholarly but it is not evidence, and this is only one of many perilous steps on ground extremely scabreux, got over by a series of logical leaps. As to our quarrel with Mr. Max Muller about his friend's treatment of ethnological materials, it is this: we do not believe in the validity of the etymological method when applied to many old divine names in Greek, still less in Hottentot.

Cause of our Scepticism

Our scepticism is confirmed by the extraordinary diversity of opinion among scholars as to what the right a.n.a.lysis of old divine names is. Mr.

Max Muller writes (i. 18): 'I have never been able to extract from my critics the t.i.tle of a single book in which my etymologies and my mythological equations had been seriously criticised by real scholars.'

We might answer, 'Why tell you what you know very well?' For (i. 50) you say that while Signer Canizzaro calls some of your 'equations'

'irrefutably demonstrated,' 'other scholars declare these equations are futile and impossible.' Do these other scholars criticise your equations not 'seriously'? Or are you ignorant of the names of their works?

Another case. Our author says that 'many objections were raised' to his 'equation' of Athene=Ahana='Dawn' (ii. 378, 400, &c.). Have the objections ceased? Here are a few scholars who do not, or did not, accept Athene=Ahana: Welcker, Benfey, Curtius, Preller, Furtw.a.n.gler, Schwartz, and now Bechtel (i. 378). Mr. Max Muller thinks that he is right, but, till scholars agree, what can we do but wait?

Phonetic Bickerings

The evidence turns on theories of phonetic laws as they worked in pre- Homeric Greece. But these laws, as they apply to common ordinary words, need _not_, we are told, be applied so strictly to proper names, as of G.o.ds and heroes. These are a kind of comets, and their changes cannot be calculated like the changes of vulgar words, which answer to stars (i.

298). Mr. Max Muller 'formerly agreed with Curtius that phonetic rules should be used against proper names with the same severity as against ordinary nouns and verbs.' Benfey and Welcker protested, so does Professor Victor Henry. 'It is not fair to demand from mythography the rigorous observation of phonetics' (i. 387). 'This may be called backsliding,' our author confesses, and it _does_ seem rather a 'go-as- you-please' kind of method.

Phonetic Rules

Mr. Max Muller argues at length (and, to my ignorance, persuasively) in favour of a genial laxity in the application of phonetic rules to old proper names. Do they apply to these as strictly as to ordinary words?

'This is a question that has often been asked . . . but it has never been boldly answered' (i. 297). Mr. Max Muller cannot have forgotten that Curtius answered boldly--in the negative. 'Without such rigour all attempts at etymology are impossible. For this very reason ethnologists and mythologists should make themselves acquainted with the simple principles of comparative philology.' {109}

But it is not for us to settle such disputes of scholars. Meanwhile their evidence is derived from their private interpretations of old proper names, and they differ among themselves as to whether, in such interpretations, they should or should not be governed strictly by phonetic laws. Then what Mr. Max Muller calls 'the usual bickerings'

begin among scholars (i. 416). And Mr. Max Muller connects Ouranos with Vedic Varuna, while Wackernagel prefers to derive it from [Greek], urine, and this from [Greek]=Sk. Varshayami, to rain (ii. 416, 417), and so it goes on for years with a glorious uncertainty. If Mr. Max Muller's equations are scientifically correct, the scholars who accept them not must all be unscientific. Or else, this is not science at all.

Basis of a Science

A science in its early stages, while the validity of its working laws in application to essential cases is still undetermined, must, of course, expect 'bickerings.' But philological mythologists are actually trying to base one science, Mythology, on the still shifting and sandy foundations of another science, Phonetics. The philologists are quarrelling about their 'equations,' and about the application of their phonetic laws to mythical proper names. On the basis of this shaking soil, they propose to build _another_ science, Mythology! Then, pleased with the scientific exact.i.tude of their evidence, they object to the laxity of ours.

Philology in Action--Indra

As an example of the philological method with a Vedic G.o.d, take Indra. I do not think that science is ever likely to find out the whole origins of any G.o.d. Even if his name mean 'sky,' Dyaus, Zeus, we must ask what mode of conceiving 'sky' is original. Was 'sky' thought of as a person, and, if so, as a savage or as a civilised person; as a G.o.d, sans phrase; as the inanimate visible vault of heaven; as a totem, or how? Indra, like other G.o.ds, is apt to evade our observation, in his origins. Mr. Max Muller asks, 'what should we gain if we called Indra . . . a totem?' Who does? If we derive his name from the same root as 'ind-u,' _raindrop_, then 'his starting-point was the rain' (i. 131). Roth preferred 'idh,'

'indh,' _to kindle_; and later, his taste and fancy led him to 'ir,' or 'irv,' _to have power over_. He is variously regarded as G.o.d of 'bright firmament,' of air, of thunderstorm personified, and so forth. {110} His name is not detected among other Aryan G.o.ds, and his birth may be _after_ the 'Aryan Separation' (ii. 752). But surely his name, even so, might have been carried to the Greeks? This, at least, should not astonish Mr.

Max Muller. One had supposed that Dyaus and Zeus were separately developed, by peoples of India and Greece, from a common, pre-separation, Aryan root. One had not imagined that the Greeks _borrowed_ divine names from Sanskrit and from India. But this, too, might happen! (ii. 506).

Mr. Max Muller asks, 'Why should not a cloud or air G.o.ddess _of India_, whether called Svara or Urvasi, have supplied the first germs from which [Greek] descended?' Why not, indeed, if prehistoric Greeks were in touch with India? I do not say they were not. Why should not a Vedic or Sanskrit G.o.ddess of India supply the first germs of a Greek G.o.ddess? (ii.

p. 506). Why, because 'Greek G.o.ds have never been Vedic G.o.ds, but both Greek and Vedic G.o.ds have started from the same germs' (ii. 429). Our author has answered his own question, but he seems at intervals to suppose, contrary to his own principles, as I understand them, that Greek _may_ be 'derived from' Vedic divine names, or, at least, divine names in Sanskrit. All this is rather confusing.

Obscuring the Veda

If Indra is called 'bull,' that at first only meant 'strong' (ii. 209).

Yet 'some very thoughtful scholars' see traces of totemism in Indra!

{111a} Mr. Max Muller thinks that this theory is 'obscuring the Veda by this kind of light from the Dark Continent' (America, it seems). Indra is said to have been born from a cow, like the African Heitsi Eibib.

{111b} There are unholy stories about Indra and rams. But I for one, as I have said already, would never deny that these _may_ be part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the Vedic hymnists. Indra's legend is rich in savage obscenities; they may, or may not, be survivals from savagery. At all events one sees no reason why we should not freely compare parallel savageries, and why this should 'obscure' the Veda.

Comparisons are illuminating.