Modern Mythology Part 5

He examined peasant customs and rites as 'survivals' of the oldest paganism. Mr. Frazer applies Mannhardt's rich lore to the explanation of Greek and other rites in The Golden Bough, that entrancing book. Such was Mannhardt's position (as I shall prove at large) when he was writing his most famous works. But he 'returned at last to his old colours' (1.

xvii.) in Die lettischen Sonnenmythen (1875). In 1880 Mannhardt died.

Mr. Max Muller does not say whether Mannhardt, before a decease deeply regretted, recanted his heretical views about the philological method, and his expressed admiration of the study of the lower races as 'an invaluable instrument.' One would gladly read a recantation so important. But Mr. Max Muller does tell us that 'if I did not refer to his work in my previous contributions to the science of mythology the reason was simple enough. It was not, as has been suggested, my wish to suppress it (todtschweigen), but simply my want of knowledge of the materials with which he dealt' (German popular customs and traditions) 'and therefore the consciousness of my incompetence to sit in judgment on his labours.' Again, we are told that there was no need of criticism or praise of Mannhardt. He had Mr. Frazer as his prophet--but not till ten years after his death.

Mannhardt's Letters

'Mannhardt's state of mind with regard to the general principles of comparative philology has been so exactly my own,' says Mr. Max Muller, that he cites Mannhardt's letters to prove the fact. But as to the _application_ to myth of the principles of comparative philology, Mannhardt speaks of 'the lack of the historical sense' displayed in the practical employment of the method. This, at least, is 'not exactly' Mr.

Max Muller's own view. Probably he refers to the later period when Mannhardt 'returned to his old colours.'

The letters of Mannhardt, cited in proof of his exact agreement with Mr.

Max Muller about comparative philology, do not, as far as quoted, mention the subject of comparative philology at all (1. xviii-xx.). Possibly 'philology' is here a slip of the pen, and 'mythology' may be meant.

Mannhardt says to Mullenhoff (May 2, 1876) that he has been uneasy 'at the extent which sun myths threaten to a.s.sume in my comparisons.' He is opening 'a new point of view;' materials rush in, 'so that the sad danger seemed inevitable of everything becoming everything.' In Mr. Max Muller's own words, written long ago, _he_ expressed his dread, not of 'everything becoming everything' (a truly Herac.l.i.tean state of affairs), but of the 'omnipresent Sun and the inevitable Dawn appearing in ever so many disguises.' 'Have we not,' he asks, 'arrived both at the same conclusion?' Really, I do not know! Had Mannhardt quite cashiered 'the corn-spirit,' who, perhaps, had previously threatened to 'become everything'? He is still in great vigour, in Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough, and Mr. Frazer is Mannhardt's disciple. But where, all this time, is there a reference by Mannhardt to 'the general principles of comparative philology'? Where does he accept 'the omnipresent Sun and the inevitable Dawn'? Why, he says the reverse; he says in this letter that he is immeasurably removed from accepting them at all as Mr. Max Muller accepts them!

'I am very far from looking upon all myths as psychical reflections of physical phenomena, still less as of exclusively solar or meteorological phenomena, like Kuhn, Schwartz, Max Muller and their school.' What a queer way of expressing his agreement with Mr. Max Muller!

The Professor expostulates with Mannhardt (1. xx.):--'Where has any one of us ever done this?' Well, when Mannhardt said '_all_ myths,' he wrote colloquially. Shall we say that he meant 'most myths,' 'a good many myths,' 'a myth or two here and there'? Whatever he meant, he meant that he was 'still more than very far removed from looking upon all myths' as Mr. Max Muller does.

Mannhardt's next pa.s.sage I quote entire and textually from Mr. Max Muller's translation:--

'I have learnt to appreciate poetical and literary production as an essential element in the development of mythology, and to draw and utilise the consequences arising from this state of things. [Who has not?] But, on the other hand, I hold it as quite certain that a portion of the older myths arose from nature poetry which is no longer directly intelligible to us, but has to be interpreted by means of a.n.a.logies. Nor does it follow that these myths betray any historical ident.i.ty; they only testify to the same kind of conception and tendency prevailing on similar stages of development. Of these nature myths some have reference to the life and the circ.u.mstances of the sun, and our first steps towards an understanding of them are helped on by such nature poetry as the Lettish, which has not yet been obscured by artistic and poetical reflexion. In that poetry mythical personalities confessedly belonging to a solar sphere are transferred to a large number of poetical representatives, of which the explanation must consequently be found in the same (solar) sphere of nature. My method here is just the same as that applied by me to the Tree-cult.'

Mr. Max Muller asks, 'Where is there any difference between this, the latest and final system adopted by Mannhardt, and my own system which I put forward in 1856?' (1. xxi.)

How Mannhardt differs from Mr. Max Muller

I propose to show wherein the difference lies. Mannhardt says, 'My method is just the same as that applied by me to the Tree-cult.' What was _that_ method?

Mannhardt, in the letter quoted by Mr. Max Muller, goes on to describe it; but Mr. Max Muller omits the description, probably not realising its importance. For Mannhardt's method is the reverse of that practised under the old colours to which he is said to have returned.

Mannhardt's Method

'My method is here the same as in the Tree-cult. I start from a given collection of facts, of which the central idea is distinct and generally admitted, and consequently offers a firm basis for explanation. I ill.u.s.trate from this and from well-founded a.n.a.logies. Continuing from these, I seek to elucidate darker things. I search out the simplest radical ideas and perceptions, the germ-cells from whose combined growth mythical tales form themselves in very different ways.'

Mr. Frazer gives us a similar description of Mannhardt's method, whether dealing with sun myths or tree myths. {46} 'Mannhardt set himself systematically to collect, compare, and explain the living superst.i.tions of the peasantry.' Now Mr. Max Muller has just confessed, as a reason for incompetence to criticise Mannhardt's labours, 'my want of knowledge of the materials with which he dealt--the popular customs and traditions of Germany.' And yet he asks where there is any difference between his system and Mannhardt's. Mannhardt's is the study of rural survival, the system of folklore. Mr. Max Muller's is the system of comparative philology about which in this place Mannhardt does not say one single word. Mannhardt interprets some myths 'arising from nature poetry, no longer intelligible to us,' by _a.n.a.logies_; Mr. Max Muller interprets them by _etymologies_.

The difference is incalculable; not that Mannhardt always abstains from etymologising.

Another Claim on Mannhardt

While maintaining that 'all comparative mythology must rest on comparison of names as its most certain basis' (a system which Mannhardt declares explicitly to be so far 'a failure'), Mr. Max Muller says, 'It is well known that in his last, nay posthumous essay, Mannhardt, no mean authority, returned to the same conviction.' I do not know which is Mannhardt's very last essay, but I shall prove that in the posthumous essays Mannhardt threw cold water on the whole method of philological comparative mythology.

However, as proof of Mannhardt's return to Mr. Max Muller's convictions, our author cites Mythologische Forschungen (pp. 86-113).

What Mannhardt said

In the pa.s.sages here produced as proof of Mannhardt's conversion, he is not investigating a myth at all, or a name which occurs in mythology. He is trying to discover the meaning of the practices of the Lupercalia at Rome. In February, says Dionysius of Halicarna.s.sus, the Romans held a popular festival, and lads ran round naked, save for skins of victims, whipping the spectators. Mannhardt, in his usual way, collects all the facts first, and then a.n.a.lyses the name Luperci. This does not make him a philological mythologist. To take a case in point, at Selkirk and Queensferry the bounds are ridden, or walked, by 'Burleymen' or 'Burrymen.' {48} After examining the facts we examine the words, and ask, 'Why Burley or Burry men?' At Queensferry, by a folk etymology, one of the lads wears a coat stuck over with burrs. But 'Borough-men' seems the probable etymology. As we examine the names Burley, or Burry men, so Mannhardt examines the name Luperci; and if a true etymology can be discovered, it will ill.u.s.trate the original intention of the Lupercalia (p. 86).

He would like to explain the Lupercalia as a popular play, representing the spirits of vegetation opposing the spirits of infertility. 'But we do not forget that our whole theory of the development of the rite rests on a hypothesis which the lack of materials prevents us from demonstrating.' He would explain Luperci as Lupiherci--'wolf-goats.'

Over this we need not linger; but how does all this prove Mannhardt to have returned to the method of comparing Greek with Vedic divine names, and arriving thence at some celestial phenomenon as the basis of a terrestrial myth? Yet he sometimes does this.

My Relations to Mannhardt

If anything could touch and move an unawakened anthropologist it would be the conversion of Mannhardt. My own relations with his ideas have the interest of ill.u.s.trating mental coincidences. His name does not occur, I think, in the essay, 'The Method of Folklore,' in the first edition of my Custom and Myth. In that essay I take, as an example of the method, the Scottish and Northumbrian Kernababy, the puppet made out of the last gleanings of harvest. This I compared to the Greek Demeter of the harvest-home, with sheaves and poppies in her hands, in the immortal Seventh Idyll of Theocritus. Our Kernababy, I said, is a stunted survival of our older 'Maiden,' 'a regular image of the harvest G.o.ddess,'

and I compared [Greek]. Next I gave the parallel case from ancient Peru, and the odd accidental coincidence that _there_ the maize was styled Mama Cora ([Greek]!).

In entire ignorance of Mannhardt's corn-spirit, or corn-mother, I was following Mannhardt's track. Indeed, Mr. Max Muller has somewhere remarked that I popularise Mannhardt's ideas. Naturally he could not guess that the coincidence was accidental and also inevitable. Two men, unknown to each other, were using the same method on the same facts.

Mannhardt's Return to his old Colours

If, then, Mannhardt was re-converted, it would be a potent argument for my conversion. But one is reminded of the re-conversion of Prince Charles. In 1750 he 'deserted the errors of the Church of Rome for those of the Church of England.' Later he returned, or affected to return, to the ancient faith.

A certain Cardinal seemed contented therewith, and, as the historian remarks, 'was clearly a man not difficult to please.' Mr. Max Muller reminds me of the good Cardinal. I do not feel so satisfied as he does of Mannhardt's re-conversion.

Mannhardt's Att.i.tude to Philology

We have heard Mannhardt, in a letter partly cited by Mr. Max Muller, describe his own method. He begins with what is certain and intelligible, a ma.s.s of popular customs. These he explains by a.n.a.logies.

He pa.s.ses from the known to the obscure. Philological mythologists begin with the unknown, the name of a G.o.d. This they a.n.a.lyse, extract a meaning, and (proceeding to the known) fit the facts of the G.o.d's legend into the sense of his name. The methods are each other's opposites, yet the letter in which Mannhardt ill.u.s.trates this fact is cited as a proof of his return to his old colours.

Irritating Conduct of Mannhardt

Nothing irritates philological mythologists so much, nothing has injured them so much in the esteem of the public which 'goes into these things a little,' as the statement that their competing etymologies and discrepant interpretations of mythical names are mutually destructive. I have been told that this is 'a mean argument.' But if one chemical a.n.a.lyst found bis.m.u.th where another found iridium, and a third found argon, the public would begin to look on chemistry without enthusiasm; still more so if one chemist rarely found anything but inevitable bis.m.u.th or omnipresent iridium. Now Mannhardt uses this 'mean argument.'