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
We saw that among various rude races other theories of the origin of man
were current. Men were thought to have come out of a hole in the
ground or a bed of reeds, and sometimes the very scene of their first
appearance was still known and pointed out to the curious. This myth
was current among races who regarded themselves as the only people whose
origin needed explanation. Other stories represented man as the fruit of
a tree, or the child of a rock or stone, or as the descendant of one of
the lower animals. Examples of these opinions in Greek legend are now to
be given. In the first place, we have a fragment of Pindar, in which the
poet enumerates several of the centres from which different Greek
tribes believed men to have sprung. "Hard it is to find out whether
Alalkomeneus, first of men, arose on the marsh of Cephissus, or whether
the Curetes of Ida first, a stock divine, arose, or if it was the
Phrygian Corybantes that the sun earliest saw--men like trees
walking;" and Pindar mentions Egyptian and Libyan legends of the same
description.(1) The Thebans and the Arcadians held themselves to be
"earth-born". "The black earth bore Pelasgus on the high wooded hills,"
says an ancient line of Asius. The Dryopians were an example of a race
of men born from ash-trees. The myth of gens virum truncis et duro
robore nata, "born of tree-trunk and the heart of oak," had passed into
a proverb even in Homer's time.(2) Lucian mentions(3) the Athenian myth
"that men grew like cabbages out of the earth". As to Greek myths of
the descent of families from animals, these will be examined in the
discussion of the legend of Zeus.
(1) Preller, Aus. Auf., p. 158.
(2) Virgil Aen., viii. 315; Odyssey, xix. 163; Iliad, ii. xxii. 120;
Juvenal, vi. 11. Cf. also Bouche Leclerq, De Origine Generis Humani.
(3) Philops. iii.
CHAPTER XI. SAVAGE DIVINE MYTHS.
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--The current anthropological theory--Stated
objections to the theory--Gods and spirits--Suggestion that savage
religion is borrowed from Europeans--Reply to Mr. Tylor's arguments on
this head--The morality of savages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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