Index:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu

Title Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Volume 1 Author Andrew Lang Translator Editor Year 1887 Publisher   Longmans, Green & Co. Location London Scans djvu Progress  Proofread—All pages of the work proper are proofread, but not all are validated Volumes 1 - 2 Pages (key to Page Status) – – – –  i  ii  iii  iv  v  vi  vii  viii  ix  x  xi  xii  xiii  xiv  xv  xvi  xvii – 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 071 072 073 074 075 076 077 078 079 080 081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090 091 092 093 094 095 096 097 098 099 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 – – – –

Volume 1 of 2; Project Gutenberg CONTENTS. →← CHAPTER I. SYSTEMS OF MYTHOLOGY 1 Origin of attempts to explain myths—(1.) Among the old heathen races a practical and moral need of apology for mythical acts of gods—(2.) Modern historical curiosity—Ancient apologetics, poetic, priestly, philosophic—The two elements in myth, rational and irrational—Examples: Method of Homer, omission and selection—Method of Pindar—Ancient physical, etymological, political, historical, mystic, and symbolical explanations of Greek myths—The assaults of the Christian Fathers on myths—Plutarch, Porphyry, and their refutation by Eusebius—Short sketch of later theories of myth—Bryant, Creuzer, Otfried Müller, Lobeck—The philologists, Kuhn, Schwartz, Max Müller—Objections of Mannhardt—Limitations of philology.   CHAPTER II. NEW SYSTEM PROPOSED 26 Chapter I. recapitulated—Proposal of a new method: Science of comparative or historical study of man—Anticipated in part by Eusebius, Fontenelle, De Brosses, Spencer (of C.C.C., Cambridge), and Mannhardt—Science of Tylor—Object of inquiry: to find condition of human intellect in which marvels of myth are parts of practical everyday belief—This is the savage state—Savages described—The wild element of myth a survival from the savage state—Advantages of this method—Partly accounts for wide diffusion as well as origin of myths—Connected with general theory of evolution—Puzzling example of myth of the water-swallower—Professor Tiele's criticism of the method—Objections to method, and answer to these—See Appendix B.   CHAPTER III. THE MENTAL CONDITION OF SAVAGES—CONFUSION WITH NATURE—TOTEMISM 46 The mental condition of savages the basis of the irrational element in myth—Characteristics of that condition: (1.) Confusion of all things in an equality of presumed animation and intelligence—(2.) Belief in sorcery—(3.) Spiritualism—(4.) Curiosity—(5.) Easy credulity and mental indolence—The curiosity is satisfied, thanks to the credulity, by myths in answer to all inquiries—Evidence for this—Mr. Tylor's opinion—Mr. Im Thurn—Jesuit missionaries' Relations—Examples of confusion between men, plants, beasts, and other natural objects—Reports of travellers—Evidence from institution of totemism—Definition of totemism—Totemism in Australia, Africa, America, the Oceanic Islands, India, North Asia—Conclusion: Totemism being found so widely distributed, is a proof of the existence of that savage mental condition in which no line is drawn between men and the other things in the world—This confusion is one of the characteristics of myth in all races.   CHAPTER IV. THE MENTAL CONDITION OF SAVAGES—MAGIC—METAMORPHOSIS—METAPHYSIC—PSYCHOLOGY 82 Claims of sorcerers—Savage scientific speculation—Theory of Causation—Credulity, except as to new religious ideas—"Post hoc, ergo propter hoc"—Fundamental ideas of magic—Examples: incantations, ghosts, spirits—Evidence of rank and other institutions in proof of confusions of mind exhibited in magical beliefs.   CHAPTER V. NATURE-MYTHS 122 Savage fancy, curiosity, and credulity illustrated in nature-myths—In these all phenomena are explained by belief in the general animation of everything, combined with belief in metamorphosis—Sun-myths, Asian, Australian, African, Melanesian, Indian, Californian, Brazilian, Maori, Samoan–Moon-myths, Australian, Muysca, Mexican, Zulu, Macassar, Greenland, Piute, Malay— Thunder-myths—Greek and Aryan sun and moon myths—Star-myths—Myths, savage and civilised, of animals, accounting for their marks and habits—Examples of custom of claiming blood kinship with lower animals—Myths of various plants and trees—Myths of stones, and of metamorphosis into stones, Greek, Australian, and American—The whole natural philosophy of savages expressed in myths, and survives in folklore and classical poetry, and legends of metamorphosis.   CHAPTER VI. NON-ARYAN MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN 163 Confusion of myths—Various origins of man and of things—Myths of Australia, Andaman Islands, Bushmen, Ovaherero, Namaquas, Zulus, Hurons, Iroquois, Diggers, Navajoes, Winnebagoes, Chaldeans, Thlinkeets, Pacific Islanders, Maoris, Aztecs, Peruvians—Similarity of ideas pervading all those peoples in various conditions of society and culture.   CHAPTER VII. INDO-ARYAN MYTHS—SOURCES OF EVIDENCE 214 Authorities—Vedas—Brahmanas—Social condition of Vedic India—Arts—Ranks—War—Vedic fetishism—Ancestor-worship—Date of Rig-Veda Hymns doubtful—Obscurity of the Hymns—Difficulty of interpreting the real character of Veda—Not primitive, but sacerdotal—The moral purity not innocence, but refinement.   CHAPTER VIII. INDIAN MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN 238 Comparison of Vedic and savage myths—The metaphysical Vedic account of the beginning of things—Opposite and savage fable of world made out of fragments of a man—Discussion of this hymn—Absurdities of Brahmanas—Prajapati, an Aryan Unkulunkulu or Qat—Evolutionary myths—Marriage of heaven and earth—Myths of Puranas, their savage parallels—Most savage myths are repeated in Brahmanas.   CHAPTER IX. GREEK MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD AND MAN 255 The Greeks practically civilised when we first meet them in Homer—Their mythology, however, is full of repulsive features—The hypothesis that many of these are savage survivals—Are there other examples of such survival in Greek life and institutions?—Greek opinion was constant that the race had been savage—Illustrations of savage survival from Greek law of homicide, from magic, religion, human sacrifice, religious art, traces of totemism, and from the mysteries—Conclusion: that savage survival may also be expected in Greek myths.   CHAPTER X. GREEK COSMOGONIC MYTHS 289 Nature of the evidence—Traditions of origin of the world and man—Homeric, Hesiodic, and Orphic myths—Later evidence of historians, dramatists, commentators—The Homeric story comparatively pure—The story in Hesiod, and its savage analogues—The explanations of the myth of Cronus, modern and ancient—The Orphic cosmogony—Phanes and Prajapati—Greek myths of the origin of man—Their savage analogues.   CHAPTER XI. SAVAGE DIVINE MYTHS 327 The origin of a belief in God beyond the ken of history and of speculation—Sketch of conjectural theories—Two elements in all beliefs, whether of backward or civilised races—The Mythical and the Religious—These may be coeval, or either may be older than the other—Difficulty of study—Text from Plutarch—Gods and demons—Correspondence of savage and civilised divine myths—Their immorality—Dualism—The development of gods—Bestial, personal, elemental, departmental, pure anthropomorphic—Survival of the fittest.