Custom and Myth Part 10

{34} Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 268.

{35} Fison, Journal Anthrop. Soc., Nov. 1883.

{36a} Taylor's New Zealand, p. 181.

{36b} This is not the view of le Pere Lafitau, a learned Jesuit missionary in North America, who wrote (1724) a work on savage manners, compared with the manners of heathen antiquity. Lafitau, who was greatly struck with the resemblances between Greek and Iroquois or Carib initiations, takes Servius's other explanation of the mystica vannus, 'an osier vessel containing rural offerings of first fruits.' This exactly answers, says Lafitau, to the Carib Matoutou, on which they offer sacred ca.s.sava cakes.

{37} The Century Magazine, May 1883.

{39} ????? ???a???? ?? e??pta? t? spa?t??? ?a? e? ta?? te?eta?? ed??e?t? ??a ?????. Lobeck, Aglaophamus (i. p. 700).

{40a} De Corona, p. 313.

{40b} Savage Africa. Captain Smith, the lover of Pocahontas, mentions the custom in his work on Virginia, pp. 245-248.

{40c} Brough Smyth, i. 60, using evidence of Howitt, Taplin, Thomas, and Wilhelmi.

{41a} Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 214.

{41b} ?e?? ????se??, c. 15.

{42} Cape Monthly Magazine, July 1874.

{44} Wallace, Travels on the Amazon, p. 349.

{46a} New Zealand, Taylor, pp. 119-121. Die heilige Sage der Polynesier, Bastian, pp. 36-39.

{46b} A crowd of similar myths, in one of which a serpent severs Heaven and Earth, are printed in Turner's Samoa.

{48} The translation used is Jowett's.

{49a} Theog., 166.

{49b} Apollodorus, i. 15.

{50a} Primitive Culture, i. 325.

{50b} Pauthier, Livres sacres de l'Orient, p. 19.

{50c} Muir's Sanskrit Texts, v. 23. Aitareya Brahmana.

{52a} Hesiod, Theog., 497.

{52b} Paus. x. 24.

{54a} Bleek, Bushman Folklore, pp. 6-8.

{54b} Theal, Kaffir Folklore, pp. 161-167.

{54c} Brough Smith, i. 432-433.

{55a} i. 338.

{55b} Rel. de la Nouvelle-France (1636), p. 114.

{56} Codrington, in Journal Anthrop. Inst. Feb. 1881. There is a Breton Marchen of a land where people had to 'bring the Dawn' daily with carts and horses. A boy, whose sole property was a c.o.c.k, sold it to the people of this country for a large sum, and now the c.o.c.k brings the dawn, with a great saving of trouble and expense. The Marchen is a survival of the state of mind of the Solomon Islanders.

{58a} Selected Essays, i. 460.

{58b} Ibid. i. 311.

{59} Ueber Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung (1874), p. 148.

{60a} ii. 127.

{60b} G. D. M., ii. 127, 129.

{61a} Gr. My., i. 144.

{61b} De Abst., ii. 202, 197.

{61c} Rel. und Myth., ii. 3.

{61d} Ursprung der Myth., pp. 133, 135, 139, 149.

{62a} Contemporary Review, Sept. 1883.

{62b} Rev. de l'Hist. rel. i. 179.

{65} That Pururavas is regarded as a mortal man, in relations with some sort of spiritual mistress, appears from the poem itself (v. 8, 9, 18). The human character of Pururavas also appears in R. V. i. 31, 4.

{66a} Selected Essays, i. 408.

{66b} The Apsaras is an ideally beautiful fairy woman, something 'between the high G.o.ds and the lower grotesque beings,' with 'lotus eyes' and other agreeable characteristics. A list of Apsaras known by name is given in Meyer's Gandharven-Kentauren, p. 28. They are often regarded as cloud-maidens by mythologists.

{68} Selected Essays, i. p. 405.

{69a} Cf. ruber, rufus, O. H. G. rot, rudhira, e??????; also Sanskrit, ravi, sun.

{69b} Myth. Ar. Nat., ii. 81.

{69c} R. V. iii. 29, 3.

{69d} The pa.s.sage alluded to in Homer does not mean that dawn 'ends' the day, but 'when the fair-tressed Dawn brought the full light of the third day' (Od., v. 390).

{70a} Liebrecht (Zur Volkskunde, 241) is reminded by Pururavas (in Roth's sense of der Bruller) of loud-thundering Zeus, e??yd??p??.

{70b} Herabkunft des Fetters, p. 86-89.