Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
I began by calling Strachey a plagiary. The reader will now observe that
he gives far more than he takes. For example, his account of the temples
is much more full than that of Smith, and he adds to Smith's version the
character and being of Ahone, as what "the priests tell them". I submit,
therefore, that Strachey's additions, if valid for temples, are not
discredited for Ahone, merely because they are inserted in the framework
of Smith. As far as I understand the matter, Smith's Map of Virginia
(1612) is an amended copy, with additions, by Smith or another writer
of that description, which he sent home to the Council of Virginia,
in November, 1608.(1) To the book of 1612 was added a portion of
"Relations" by different hands, edited by W. S., namely, Dr. Symonds.
Strachey's editor, in 1849, regarded W. S. as Strachey, and supposed
that Strachey was the real author of Smith's Map of Virginia, so that,
in his Historie of Travaile, Strachey merely took back his own. He did
not take back his own; he made use of Smith's MS., not yet published, if
Mr. Arber and I rightly date Strachey's MS. at 1610-15, or 1611-12.
Why Strachey acted thus it is possible to conjecture. As a scholar well
acquainted with Virginia, and as Secretary for the Colony, he would have
access to Smith's MS. of 1608 among the papers of the Council, before
its publication. Smith professes himself "no scholer".(2) On the other
hand, Strachey likes to show off his Latin and Greek. He has a
curious, if inaccurate, knowledge of esoteric Greek and Roman religious
antiquities, and in writing of religion aims at a comparative method.
Strachey, however, took the trouble to copy bits of Smith into his own
larger work, which he never gave to the printers.
(1) Arber, p. 444.
(2) Arber, p. 442.
Now as to Ahone. It suits my argument to suppose that Strachey's account
is no less genuine than his description of the temples (illustrated by
a picture by John White, who had been in Virginia in 1589), and the
account of the Great Hare of American mythology.(1) This view of a
Virginian Creator, "our chief god" "who takes upon him this shape of a
hare," was got, says Strachey, "last year, 1610," from a brother of the
Potomac King, by a boy named Spilman, who says that Smith "sold" him
to Powhattan.(2) In his own brief narrative Spelman (or Spilman) says
nothing about the Cosmogonic Legend of the Great Hare. The story came
up when Captain Argoll was telling Powhattan's brother the account of
creation in Genesis (1610).
(1) Strachey, p. 98-100.
(2) "Spilman's Narrative," Arber, cx.-cxiv.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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